Gamification in service management is nothing new, but all too often it only focuses on points, badges, and leaderboards. In this presentation, Sanjeev goes beyond this, and shows you how you can apply gaming techniques to drive the right behaviours amongst end users and agents. Plus he shares examples of specific game techniques that can be applied to your service desk, based on Yukai Chou's Octalysis framework for gamification and behavioural design. Take a look at this presentation to gain actionable insights based on game techniques when applied to the service desk; to take away advice on how to improve end user adoption (of the likes of self-service) and agent motivation. Plus learn a new behavioural design framework (Octalysis).

1. Gamification in Service Desk
Have you realised gamers don’t really ‘have’ to play games?
Sanjeev NC, ITSM Consultant @ Freshworks

2. This is me,
working out in
the gaming
world

4. Yu-kai Chou
Gamification Expert
https://yukaichou.com/
@yukaichou
A social enterprise focused on solving
social problems through technology

5. “Gamification
is not for us”
“We have no time to
play games”
“Let’s talk serious
things please”
“I’m not a gamer”

6. Function focused
Most systems are “function-focused,”
designed to get the job done quickly. This is
like a factory that assumes its workers will do
their jobs because they are required to.
Human-Focused Design remembers that
people in a system have feelings, insecurities,
and reasons why they want or do not want to
do certain things, and therefore optimizes for
their feelings, motivations, and engagement.
Human focused
It is called gamification because the gaming industry was the first to master human focused design.
Game designers have spent decades learning how to keep people consistently engaged with repetitive activity loops towards
purposeless goals

7. Function
focused

8. Human focused

9. Application of game elements & game mechanics into real world
applications
What is Gamification?

10. ...and it’s also for ‘serious’ players
SAP: The SAP Community Network regamified its already-mature reputation system, increasing
usage by 400% and community feedback by 96%
Google: designed a Travel Expense System resulting in close to 100% of employee compliance
for travel expenses
Deloitte: training programs that are gamified took 50% less time to complete and massively
improved longterm engagement
Microsoft: improved it’s translations for Windows OS through the Language Quality game with over
900 employees completing 26,000 tasks with 170 additional errors reported
Source - https://yukaichou.com/gamification-examples/gamification-stats-figures/

11. I wish my end users
would use the
product more
I wish I could make
IT known to the
entire organisation
I wish my team was
more involved in
their work
I wish I could
improve my team
motivation
I wish my I could
improve my self
service portal
adoption
I wish my team really
enjoyed coming into
work everyday
Gamification in
ITSM

12. “Oh, we tried
gamification in our
service desk...it
didn’t really work”

13. ● Improve product adoption by the end users (including self service
adoption)
● Drive up agent productivity/motivation
● Build a better brand for IT
Why Gamification for us?

14. “You can’t assume people will use
something just because it makes life
easy for them”

15. Gamification
Design Framework
- Octalysis

16. Epic Meaning &
Calling
Always paint the big picture
Break the silos
Show them how their work is impacting the business
Core Driver #1
How to increase
this core driver?

17. Accomplishment
Project completion progress bar
Set specific goals & milestones - reward with badges
Reward power users
Frequent Flyer
How to increase
this core driver?
Core Driver #2

18. Meaning
Empowerment of
creativity &
feedback
Run ideation workshops - don’t dismiss crazy ideas!
Improvement ideas from users (Feedback through
points)
80 - 20 Rule
Core Driver #3
How to increase
this core driver?

19. Meaning
Ownership
Get your users involved in the project right from the start
Assign clear owners to projects (DRI)
Constantly remind them of the progress they’ve made
Crowdsource ideas from your team/users
How to increase
this core driver?
Core Driver #4

20. MeaningSocial Influence
and Relatedness
Peer to peer mentorship (Enable bragging)
Personalise the support experience
Influence behavior by establishing social norms (Security
patch)
Reduced 2.6 Terawatt
hours of electricity
between 2007 to 2013
How to increase
this core driver?
Core Driver #5

21. Meaning
Scarcity &
Impatience
Core Driver #6

22. Meaning
Unpredictability
Run treasure hunts within your product
Interesting fact/information pop-ups
Employee of the week/month/day
Core Driver #7
How to increase
this core driver?

23. Loss &
Avoidance
“Let’s not move out of the old ticketing system please!”
Increase the fear of missing out
Show end users what they would be missing out
instead of asking them to do something
Core Driver #7
How to increase
this core driver?

24. How to think about
Gamification? “We need to gamify this process”
“We need to gamify this UI”
“We need to gamify this team”
“We need to gamify everything”

25. How to think about
Gamification?
How NOT to think
about
Gamification?
“We need to gamify this process”
“We need to gamify this UI”
“We need to gamify this team”
“We need to gamify everything”

26. 5 areas to gamify

27. Self service adoption
Personalise
- Create a sense of relatedness on the
self service portal
Create a hype around the launch
Give them one thing to do
- Highlight announcements or the self service portal
Easter eggs
- Random FAQs or tips that pop up
Beginner’s Luck
- Simple rewards to those who use the portal for the first
time
Why gamify?
- Lack of motivation for end
users to use the self
service portal
- Lack of awareness about
the end user portal
SI & Relatedness
Unpredictability

28. Glowing Choice (#28)

29. Conformity Anchor (#58)

32. Knowledge base
creation Set specific milestones, reward milestone
achievement
- Create 20 solution articles within a month
Measure how many tickets are avoided
- Set a goal for “Number of Incidents reduced”
Give creative freedom [OR] Set constraints
- It doesn’t have to be text
- [OR] It SHOULDN’T be text
Why gamify?
- Kbase is always an
afterthought
- Kbase powers your
AI/ML strategy
Accomplishment
Meaning
Empowerment

34. Learning goals Publish a learning plan with a list of activities
- Finish 4 courses
- Learn 5 applications
Set measurable validation points
- Is able to troubleshoot independently
- Can talk to angry customers on their own
Acknowledge growth with rewards
- Grant the badge
- Enable them to brag
- Entice more people on the path
Why gamify?
- No focus on L & D
- Will lose motivation in
the long run if they
don’t see themselves
growing
Accomplishment
Social Influence

35. Freshservice Marketing Team - Reward Matrix
Level Badge To Level Up Validation Reward
Jon Snow
(Knows Nothing)
Read “The Phoenix
Project”
Take a marketing course
Can write an ITSM
blog on their own
Can understand IT
agents
Stops
updating
work tracker
Gandalf the Grey
(ITSM Wizard)
Talk to ITSM teams
Clear ITIL Practitioner
Can answer
customer support
tickets
Gets “1 Day
No Questions
asked” leave
coupon
Morgan Freeman
(ITSM God)
Write a 1000 page, award
winning IT Service
Management book
Gain 10K Twitter followers
Is World Famous Gets to be
CEO for a day
I AM GOD

36. Metric achievement Pick a metric (One metric) to focus on
- Remember, metrics drives the behavior
- Tell everyone what it means
- Put them up on a big TV
Set a goal
- Set milestones in between
- Set rewards for those milestones
- Introduce surprise rewards
If it’s agent metric, set up a public dashboard
- Remember to reset the points (Else they lose interest)
Once the metric is achieved, CELEBRATE!!!
Meaning
Accomplishment
Unpredictability
Why gamify?
- To keep the focus on one
improvement area
- To make sure everyone
remembers what to focus
on

38. Form an elite group (Invite only, etc)
- Discuss new IT initiatives and seek feedback
- Make it really hard to get involved
Identify power users & empower them further
- Build a community powered support system
- Reward veteran users
- Empower them to solve problems
Talk to them about the bigger picture
Community building
Why gamify?
- Trusted advisors
- Beta users
- Evangelists for IT
Scarcity
Meaning
Ownership
Social Influence

39. General Gamification best practices
● Don’t treat gamification as a project
● Don’t try to gamify EVERYTHING.
○ Playing one game properly is always more fun
● Don’t brand gamification everywhere
○ Sometimes, intrinsic gamification works better when people don’t acknowledge they’re
playing games
● Infuse game mechanics in the design stage
○ Don’t wait until the product is build and then say “Oh wait, we need to gamify it”
● Ask these questions before gamifying
○ “How do I want my users to feel?”
○ “What behavior am I trying to drive?”

40. Mandatory takeaway slide
● Gamification is not just about points & badges
● Don’t design for functions but design for humans
● Remember the 8 Core Drivers and Octalysis framework for Gamification
● Potential areas to gamify:
○ Self service adoption
○ Team Learning & Development
○ Building a user community
○ Knowledge base creation
○ Metric achievement

41. “I was introduced to gamification and developed a strong love for it because, in
the end, I was the player. And all others looked on.”
― Kingsley Ofosu-Ampong, University of Ghana

42. Sanjeev NC
@yenceesanjeev
blog.freshservice.com
https://itsm.tools/author/sanjeev-nc
You can talk to me about:
Self service (Ask me about Selfless Service)
ITSM Tool Implementations (Award winning)
How IT can learn from Marketing
Harry Potter (I wrote an ITSM + Harry Potter blog)

43. GAME ON!!!!
Sanjeev NC, Freshworks
sanjeev@freshworks.com