Game on: Engaging customers and employeesthrough gamification

Karen Robson a,*, Kirk Plangger b, Jan H. Kietzmann a,Ian McCarthy a, Leyland Pitt a

aBeedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University, 500 Granville Street, Vancouver, BC V6C 1W6, CanadabKing’s College London, University of London, 150 Stamford Street, London SE1 9NH, UK

Business Horizons (2016) 59, 29—36

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

ScienceDirectwww.elsevier.com/locate/bushor

KEYWORDSGamification;Employee engagement;Customer engagement;Mechanics;Dynamics;Emotions;Behavior change

Abstract Managers are frequently tasked with increasing the engagement levels ofkey stakeholders, such as customers and employees. Gamification–—defined as theapplication of game design principles to change behavior in non-gaming contexts–—is atool that, if crafted and implemented properly, can increase engagement. In thisarticle we discuss how gamification can aid customer and employee engagement, anddelineate between four different types of customers and employees who act as‘players’ in gamified experiences. We include illustrative examples of gamificationand conclude by presenting five lessons for managers who wish to utilize gamification.# 2015 Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. Published by Elsevier Inc. Allrights reserved.

1. The promise of gamification

Gamification and engagement are hot topics withinthe business literature (Kim & Mauborgne, 2014;Robson, Plangger, Kietzmann, McCarthy, & Pitt,2015). In this article we bridge these two topics byillustrating how gamification can improve the way inwhich firms engage customers and employees. Webegin by defining and explaining the concept and

* Corresponding authorE-mail addresses: krobson@sfu.ca (K. Robson),

kirk.plangger@me.com (K. Plangger), jan_kietzmann@sfu.ca(J.H. Kietzmann), imccarth@sfu.ca (I. McCarthy), lpitt@sfu.ca(L. Pitt)

0007-6813/$ — see front matter # 2015 Kelley School of Business, Ihttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2015.08.002

practice of gamification. Then, we introduce differ-ent types of players and explain how managers cancreate gamified experiences for customers and em-ployees that conform to each of these types of player.We illustrate such gamification efforts through ex-tended examples. More specifically, we add to theliterature by explaining and illustrating how tradi-tional approaches to employee and customer engage-ment can be gamified to create richer and moreappealing experiences that motivate changes inthe behavior of the players involved.

This article follows an earlier Business Horizonspiece wherein we introduced and demarcated theprinciples of gamification; here, gamification wasdefined as ‘‘the application of game-design principlesin order to change behaviors in non-game situations’’

ndiana University. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

30 K. Robson et al.

(Robson et al., 2015, p. 411). Specifically, theseinterrelated principles include mechanics, dynamics,and emotions (Hunicke, LeBlanc, & Zubek, 2004).Gamification mechanics specify, among other things,the rules, goals, setting, and interactions of thegame. Gamification designers determine these me-chanics, which remain constant from player toplayer, before the gamified experience begins.For example, mechanics specify the goals of thegame and how players, individually or in teams,‘win’ or progress through the online or the real-world experiences. Gamification dynamics arethe player behaviors (e.g., cheating, bluffing,bragging) that emerge when the mechanics areexecuted during the gamified experience. Finally,gamification emotions (e.g., excitement, disap-pointment) are the affective states evoked duringthe experience. Ultimately, we suggest gamifica-tion can change stakeholder behavior when it tapsinto key motivational drivers of human behavior,including extrinsic reinforcements (e.g., money,status) and intrinsic rewards.

2. A matter of engagement

In this second article, we focus specifically on howgamification efforts can create engaging experienceswith the objective of solving organizational prob-lems. In a management context, engagement is akey issue that has, not surprisingly, received consid-erable attention. Two types of engagement are ofparticular interest to managers: employee engage-ment and customer engagement. These topics havebeen the focus of many research articles, as well as anumber of special issues (see Brodie, Ilic, Juric, &Hollebeek, 2013; Saks, 2006).

From a psychological standpoint, engagement inan experience comprises the energy, involvement,and efficacy felt by the individual in the experience(Maslach & Leiter, 1997). Employee engagement en-tails ‘harnessing’ employees to their jobs throughtheir involvement, satisfaction, and enthusiasm forwork (Kahn, 1990). Engagement can have impactfulimplications for managers: it can be positively asso-ciated with organizational commitment and organi-zational citizenship, but also negatively associatedwith intentions to quit (Saks, 2006). Moreover, in-creased employee engagement has been linked toincreased customer satisfaction (Harter, Schmidt, &Hayes, 2002), which is why it is not surprising that it isin the interest of managers to improve internal be-havioral attributes. However, achieving high employ-ee engagement is not easy.

Customer engagement can be conceptualized asa psychological state that is context dependent and

characterized by dynamic iterative processes(Brodie et al., 2013), as well as behavioral mani-festations (e.g., providing feedback, writing socialmedia reviews, participating in branded events)beyond merely completing transactions (Hollebeek,2011; Parent, Plangger, & Bal, 2011). In what fol-lows, we focus on the behavioral manifestationsthat are key outcomes of gamification that increaseorganizational and customer value, and discussmeasurable outcomes.

3. Player types matter

Four different parties are involved in gamified ex-periences: players, designers, spectators, and ob-servers (Robson et al., 2015). Players are thoseindividuals who participate in the gamifiedexperience itself, often customers or employees.Designers are those individuals who create gamifiedexperiences; in an organizational context, theseindividuals are managers. Spectators are individualswho do not directly participate in the experience,but who may influence the experience through, forexample, supporting players. Finally, observers areindividuals who are aware of the gamified experi-ence but have no direct or indirect impact on it. Inthis article, we focus on one category of peopleinvolved in gamified experiences: the players. Un-derstanding different players is key to creatingsuccessful gamification experiences, and with thegoal of solving organizational problems we focus ongamified experiences designed for those playerswho consume a firm’s offerings (i.e., customers)and those who create them (i.e., employees).

One challenge for game designers is that individ-ual players vary, and understanding this variability isboth difficult and necessary for creating engagingexperiences. We reason that across all gamifiedexperiences players can be described based ontwo dimensions derived from the work of Bartle(1996): player orientation and player competitive-ness. Player orientation describes whether the play-er is oriented predominantly toward other players ortoward themselves. For example, a player who isprimarily oriented toward others would be interest-ed in social aspects of the experience such as learn-ing about other players, interacting with otherplayers, and empathizing with them. In contrast,players with a self-orientation would be more inter-ested in self concerns, such as personal growthand/or personal achievement, than the concernsof others. The next dimension, player competitive-ness, describes the extent to which the individualengages in competitive behavior. At one extreme,players may exhibit high competitiveness through

Figure 1. Typology of players in gamified experiences

Stri vers are thos e who pl ay in order to engag e in personal developm ent. To Strivers , achie ving a pe rsonal be st scor e is impo rtant .

Socialites are thos e wh o play in order to netw ork, coll abo rate, or bond . To Socialite s, understandi ng, empathi zin g with, and lea rnin g ab out other players is important .

Slaye rs are those who play in order to be better than othe rs. To Slaye rs, r elati ve stand ing (i.e., winn ing) is impo rtant.

Schola rs are th ose wh o play in order to learn about the game. To Schola rs, understanding and learning ab out the gamified experien ce itself is important.

Hig

h

Others

Low

Self PLAYER ORIEN TATION

PLA

YER

COM

PETI

TIVE

NES

S

Game on: Engaging customers and employees through gamification 31

vying to gain points, social status, or other game-related goals. At the other extreme, players mayhave very low competitiveness; these players will bemore interested in the experience itself than inwinning or in achieving high scores.

These dimensions permit the delineation of fourtypes of players: strivers, scholars, socialites, andslayers. We argue that most players involved ingamified experiences fit into one of the fourdescriptive quadrants of Figure 1. For example,players who are highly competitive and who havea self-orientation are strivers. These individualsfocus mainly on achieving their personal best scoreor increasing their own performance over time. Incontrast, those players who are highly competitivebut who are oriented toward other players and aremore interested in their standing as compared toothers than their score in isolation are known asslayers. For slayers, winning and beating other play-ers is what matters the most. Scholars are thoseplayers who have a self-orientation and low com-petitiveness. To scholars, understanding and learn-ing about the gamified experience is important.Finally, those players who are oriented towardothers and who are not very competitive aresocialites. To socialites, interpersonal relationshipsand getting to know others is highly rewarding.

4. Engagement through gamification:Cases

In what follows, we provide illustrative cases of usinggamification to create engaging experiences for dif-ferent player types. In our first case, we illustrate

how gamification can create engaging customer ex-periences to improve the way customers interactwith a brand or firm. Our second case illustrateshow gamification can increase the engagement ofemployees, leading to higher degrees of productivityat work. Importantly, however, we do not want tosuggest that gamification is a panacea for all organi-zational ills, and thus we also present unsuccessfulexamples of gamification to offer a balanced per-spective. Managers considering a gamification initia-tive in their organization can vicariously learn asmuch from the failure of others as from their success.

4.1. Engaging customers throughgamification: Jay-Z’s Decoded

Traditional book launches are usually not particularlyinteractive or exciting, let alone engaging. With thepossible exception of book signings where an authorreads passages from the new publication, launchestypically consist of press releases, book displays atretailers, and online and print advertisements. How-ever, when American rapper Jay-Z published his bookentitled Decoded, the book launch was a gamifiedexperience. Jay-Z employed advertising agencyDroga5 to gamify the book launch so that it led toan engaging customer experience. To accomplishthis, Droga5 turned the book launch and readinginto a scavenger hunt. Droga5 first partnered withMicrosoft’s search engine, Bing, and designed anintegrated online and on-the-street gamifiedexperience–—named Decode Jay-Z (referred to asDecode)–—in which players (i.e., Jay-Z fans) set outto find pages of Jay-Z’s book. Droga5 displayedall 320 pages of Decoded in various sizes in some

32 K. Robson et al.

unexpected places: a rooftop in New Orleans, a poolbottom in Miami, cheeseburger wrappers in New YorkCity, a pool table in Jay-Z’s 40/40 Club, and manymore. The advertising network combined old-schoolbillboard advertising, new-school social media, andmobile apps with the power of a search engine tocreate an interactive and engaging experience thatallowed players to unlock pages of the book and winconcert tickets and memorabilia. Bing offered anonline platform for the scavenger hunt by allowingplayers to use its search features (e.g., Bing maps) todecode hints and post the resulting answers.

Decode employed a variety of gamification me-chanics. For example, the scavenger hunt setupprovided ample opportunity for strivers and scholarsto connect with the gamified environment: in themonth before the book’s release in stores, the pagesof Decoded were shared across 200 physical loca-tions in 13 major U.S. cities. The content of theprose on any given page was related to its spatiallocation, and players could find hints about wherepages were located online using Bing. For example,page 24 referred to a street corner on which Jay-Zhad sold drugs, so that page was posted on thatstreet corner in the form of a billboard. Anotherexample is that of page 156, which discussed Jay-Z’srestaurant, The Spotted Pig, and appeared on therestaurant’s plates (Elberse & Owusu-Kesse, 2012).Furthermore, players were not spatially restrictedby location or device, as they could play offline ‘onthe street,’ and online on Bing. They were taskedwith using the hints to find the pages in the realworld either by finding the page on the street oralternatively by using Bing’s virtual map service.

Decode also provided opportunities for players toconnect with other players, thus appealing toslayers and socialites. For example, pairs of clueswere released on Jay-Z’s Twitter and Facebookaccounts, the Bing website, and a wide selectionof radio stations across the United States each day ofthe campaign. As a result, a collaborative dynamicemerged: a first clue narrowed down the generalgeographic location and the second allowed playersto pinpoint the exact location. Thus, in the quest tounlock all 200 pages online, players could partnerwith street players offline to find pages and thenshare rewards in a collaborative dynamic that wouldappeal to socialite player types. Progression me-chanics and achievement rewards were given to thefirst player to find a page, thus providing motivationto strivers or slayers, who value their standing in thegamified experience.

Ultimately, Droga5 turned the traditional booklaunch experience into a gamified experience.Players received clues about pages and gained infor-mation about Jay-Z’s life and consequently were

motivated to seek out pages, either physically oronline. Players thus increased their involvement withthe book launch because the gamified experiencecreated levels of intrigue, including adventuresand puzzles–—potentially reducing the cognitive dis-sonance involved in purchasing Decoded through pro-viding value in other ways (e.g., entertainment). Theoutcome of the Decoded book launch was successfulin a number of ways. First, over the course of the booklaunch, Jay-Z’s Facebook friends increased by over1 million. Second, Decoded spent 18 weeks on theNew York Times best seller list and was covered bymany major international news outlets and culturalinfluencers (e.g., bloggers). Third, Bing saw a nearly12% increase in traffic with over 1.1 billion globalmedia impressions, moving it into the top 10 mostvisited Internet sites for the first time in its history(Droga5ny, 2011).

4.2. Engaging employees throughgamification: Freshdesk

As illustrated by the case of Freshdesk, gamificationis not just for promoting exciting autobiographies offamous and pseudo-criminal rappers. It can alsoimprove everyday, routine, and relatively mundanework tasks. Freshdesk is a helpdesk software pro-gram for customer support centers that aims toimprove not only employee productivity but alsocustomer satisfaction, thus creating value for theclient firm and customers by reducing costs andboosting service quality. Freshdesk claims that bygamifying the everyday work of helpdesk employ-ees, who are often demotivated and over-stressed,its program results in reduced response times tocustomer inquiries and the ability to expand beyondits traditional channels of support by motivatingemployees to keep on task and perform well at theirjobs (Finley, 2012). The Freshdesk solution involvestransforming customer inquiries (e.g., telephonequestions, comments posted on Twitter andFacebook) into virtual tickets that are then random-ly assigned to players (i.e., customer service em-ployees). In this way, Freshdesk inspires a real-time,competitive environment via which players com-pete to improve their performance.

Freshdesk shows that employing gamification me-chanics, dynamics, and emotions can increase fun,enthusiasm, and excitement at work in customersupport centers. As call centers are notorious forbeing stressful work environments (Proper, 1998;Tuten & Neidermeyer, 2004), and often rely ona ‘sacrificial HR strategy’ (Wallace, Eagleson, &Waldersee, 2000) whereby employees are deliber-ately and frequently replaced in order to maintainenthusiastic customer support, the successful

Game on: Engaging customers and employees through gamification 33

application of gamification in this context is particu-larly striking. Indeed, gamification in this context canlead to increases in job satisfaction and improvedemployee engagement and performance, and ulti-mately in superior organizational success.

As in the case of Decode, the Freshdesk experi-ence has elements that appeal to all player types.Strivers and slayers, for example, can work towardachievement rewards, such as:

� The ‘First Call Resolution’ trophy, for resolving acustomer inquiry on the first try;

� The ‘Customer Casanova’ quest, for resolving10 tickets in a week and receiving a customerrating of ‘awesome,’ or;

� The ‘Fast Resolution’ badge, for players withparticularly speedy responses to customers.

In addition, and of particular importance to slayers,Freshdesk players are tracked on a leaderboard.Players who accumulate a certain number of pointsmove from the lowly starting position of ‘SupportNewbie’ to a high of ‘Support Guru.’ By collectingpoints and consequently earning badges, trophies,and quests, players and teams receive social status,which is visible to superiors and often to other em-ployees depending on how the management team hasset up the program. As such, employees are not onlyrewarded for their efforts through the use of points,but they are also recognized for their efforts throughthe use of social achievement rewards. Furthermore,the multiple levels and various tasks would appeal toscholars, who value learning more about the gamifiedexperience itself. Finally, Freshdesk offers opportu-nities for socialization, as the player structure can beset up as a multiplayer or multi-team environment.Even when teams compete, individual players areinvolved in coopetition or cooperation at the teamlevel while also vying for the lead within their team(Bengtsson & Kock, 2000). This coopetition dynamic ishighly desirable for managers and organizations, as itimproves individual, team, and ultimately organiza-tional success.

Freshdesk players enjoy the emotions associatedwith these dynamics, including the excitement ofleading, the amusement of watching others try tocatch up, the surprise when they come close, andthe frustration of not winning. To overcome theproblems associated with the negative emotionsof losing or not reaching objectives, Freshdesk re-sets the leaderboard regularly, the collected pointsand badges deplete, and individuals and teams canrestart the competition with a clean slate and aspireto win the next round. Indeed, this transformation

of virtual tickets solutions into points–—and alsobadges, quests, and trophies–—is amusing and excit-ing for players, thus hopefully inspiring anotherpositive transformation of employees’ attitude to-ward their work; Freshdesk (n.d.) contends that‘‘happy agents = happy customers.’’ Ultimately,Freshdesk has been successful in enhancing work-place productivity because it better aligns the goalsof both employees (i.e., having fun at work) andemployers (i.e., addressing customer inquiries effi-ciently and effectively).

4.3. Cautionary tales: Unsuccessfullygamified experiences

As most of us learned growing up, not all games arefun and many are not worth playing. The same appliesto gamified experiences in organizations. The successstories of Decode and Freshdesk should not suggestthat gamification is easy or that it always achieves thedesired result. Many otherwise very successful firmshave tried gamification and not realized improvedengagement levels or accomplished their perfor-mance goals. Google, for instance, allowed usersto win badges for reading the news, which failedsince players did not want to share with others whatkind of news they searched for. This is an example ofpoor setup mechanics that led to undesirable dynam-ics and unwelcome emotions. Just because gamifi-cation is trendy does not mean that it always works oris the best strategy.

In another unsuccessful attempt at gamification,the Marriott Hotel chain may not have understoodthe motivations of potential employees when itdesigned its gamified ‘My Marriott Hotels’ in2011. In order to attract new employees, Marriottdeveloped a Facebook game–—similar to the popularFacebook game, Farmville–—via which players simu-lated work in an actual Marriott hotel kitchen. Play-ers imitated activities including decorating thehotel dining room, ordering food inventory, andadhering to a budget. Throughout, the mechanicswere structured such that players would earn pointsfor making customers happy, and would lose pointswhen poor customer service was delivered. In addi-tion, players could easily apply for jobs at Marriotthotels through a link to Marriott’s career page fromthe Facebook game. While an innovative gamifica-tion attempt, after 1 year Marriott chose to removeMy Marriott Hotels from Facebook, as it failed tomeet the company’s original objectives in attractingpotential employees.

We conclude that My Marriott Hotels failed to meetexpectations because the designers did not fullyunderstand the players’ motivations for participat-ing. First, the mechanics of My Marriott Hotels were

34 K. Robson et al.

not structured such that the rewards were attractiveto players: players collected points for no meaningfulpurpose, other than the sake of simply collectingthem. By contrast, in the case of Freshdesk, pointsand rewards were meaningful to the players. Hadaccumulating a certain number of points in MyMarriott Hotels led to a job interview, for example,players may have been more engaged and keen onparticipating, and ultimately may have been moreinclined to apply for jobs at Marriott Hotels. In orderto keep players playing, thereby contributing to thedesired outcome, it is important to provide a sense ofachievement and meaningful rewards for player be-havior.

Second, although My Marriott Hotels may verywell have been enjoyable for some player types–—namely scholars–—the gamification strategy wouldhave been unlikely to engage slayers, socialites, orstrivers. That is, My Marriott Hotels did not allowsocial playing or the opportunity to interact withother players; as such, it did not inspire dynamics,emotions, or person-to-person connections thatwould appeal to slayers or socialites. In addition,collecting points simply for collection’s sake wouldbe unlikely to motivate strivers or slayers. Theexperience failed to elicit desirable dynamics, suchas competition or coopetition, or emotions such aspride or challenge. Without the appropriate dynam-ics and emotional responses–—which emerge due togamification mechanics–—players will ‘bounce’ andseek the same response elsewhere (Tsotsis, 2011).

4.4. A summary of the cases

These cases represent a very small sample of howgamification can be used to motivate behaviorchanges to address managerial issues. Freshdeskdemonstrates how customer service departmentscan gamify their operations to increase employeeengagement by rewarding success and providing mo-tivation. The Decoded example demonstrates howtraditional marketing promotions can be gamified in

Figure 2. Key gamification mechanics for player typ

Slay ers St

Leaderboards, Badges, and Points

Incr easi ng Task Di ffic ulty

Finite End

Multiplaye r Orien tatio n

Infinite Pl ay

sleveLweN

Team Playing

Online Playing

Real Wor ld Playing

order to increase customer engagement by first mo-tivating and then rewarding customer participationin the marketing promotion. In Figure 2, we present asummary table that will help guide designers andmanagers in using appropriate gamification mechan-ics to engage different types of employees andcustomers: slayers, strivers, socialites, and scholars.This figure is not intended to provide a comprehen-sive list of gamification mechanics; rather, it is de-signed to highlight how different player types mayrespond to some of the most popular gamificationmechanics.

5. Ready, set, go! Guidelines forcreating engaging experiences throughgamification

Ultimately, managers must remember that the rootof engagement is establishing a connection betweenthe experience and the people involved in the ex-perience (Zichermann & Cunningham, 2011). In ga-mification, this requires close alignment of thegamification mechanics and the emotions, dynam-ics, and rewards that potential players value oryearn for. Next, we provide five guidelines that willhelp designers and managers thinking about thestrategic application of the gamification principlesto engage employees and/or customers.

5.1. Understand your players beforedeciding on gamification mechanics

Once a manager has identified a problem with acustomer or employee base, he/she needs to assesswhat types of players are involved so as to choose theright mechanics. Indeed, gamification mechanicsmust be determined with care: they are often staticand can be difficult to change once the experiencehas started. Importantly, gamification mechanics arekey to ensuring players receive rewards that will

es

ri vers Socialites Scholars

Game on: Engaging customers and employees through gamification 35

motivate the desired behavior change and contributeto the dynamics and emotions of the players.

Furthermore, understanding the desires and mo-tivations of players is key to designing engaginggamified experiences. For some players, leader-boards will be highly effective in motivating behav-ior changes. For others, opportunities to collaborateand empathize with other players will be morecompelling. Of course, in some cases managersmay wish to attract all types of players. In thesecases, there is a risk that mechanics which willattract one type of player might not appeal toothers. Ultimately, managers must decide on wheth-er they wish to balance mechanics such that there issomething for everyone, or whether they wish toattract mainly one player type at the risk of alien-ating others.

5.2. Timing of rewards is key

After a manager has determined what types of play-ers he/she intends to target, consideration of thetiming of rewards will be important. Regardless ofthe type of player a manager wishes to engage,progression mechanics should seek to reward behav-ior as quickly as possible after good performance.Delayed rewards lessen the probability that the de-sired behavior will be repeated (Rothschild & Gaidis,1981), as any number of other behaviors could haveoccurred since then and the message to the player(i.e., ‘‘do that again’’) could become unclear.

From an organizational perspective, managersmust keep in mind that experienced players canbe assigned more important organizational objec-tives (e.g., work on solving harder problems, learnmore difficult skills). This is similar to the concept ofshaping (Nord & Peter, 1980), whereby complexbehaviors–—which would rarely be performed bychance–—are gradually shaped through rewardingsimpler behaviors that approximate the desiredbehavior. Essentially, through rewarding a seriesof simpler behaviors, one can shape, or build, thedesired complex behavior.

5.3. Add new levels, tasks, or players asneeded

Once the gamified experience is under way, man-agers must remember that in order for the experi-ence to remain engaging to any player type, as wellas for the experience to continue to meet organiza-tional goals, adjusting and transitioning the experi-ence is key (Robson et al., 2015). As with games, fora gamified experience to continue to inspire desiredbehavior change, new experiences or tasks must bepresented to players. For those players that value

competition (i.e., strivers and slayers), the level ofdifficulty must grow as the players progress throughthe gamified experience. For players that valueinteraction, new players or new tasks must be addedas the players progress. However, as managers ad-just and transition the gamified experience, theymust take care to ensure they do not unfairly changethe rules. In cases where the gamification mechanicsare changed abruptly, players could perceive thatthe game has betrayed them, likely prompting themto remove themselves from the experience.

5.4. Managers must act as referees

Throughout, the gamified experience will need to bemonitored, and managers play a key role in thiscapacity. Thus, the role of the manager extendsbeyond designing the gamified experience. Exter-nally, managers should monitor players to ensurethat players are still engaged and are not breakingthe rules. Nothing spoils the fun of a game like acheating player, and managers should be wary ofplayers cheating and look for instances of playerswho game a gamified experience by colluding orbreaking the rule mechanics. Although this mightnot negatively impact an organization’s desired be-havior change, it might create damaging dynamicsand emotions that could put off other players,thereby resulting in the failure of the gamificationattempt to reach that organization’s goals. Evensophisticated metrics may not pick up on playercheating or on unwanted dynamics or emotions;therefore, it is the manager’s responsibility to mon-itor the gamified experience.

5.5. Use gamification mechanics to keeptrack of the score

Without appropriate metrics, an organization cannotmeasure progress or improve on past experiences.Thus, in the planning stages, designers need to de-termine metrics and targets that would indicatesuccess for a gamification strategy, and they shouldbuild these into the mechanics of the gamified expe-rience. When designers build these metrics into themechanics, they should be structured such that as theplayers interact with the gamified experience, theyare automatically being measured; in this manner,the organization is gathering valuable informationthat can be used to judge the success of the gamifi-cation strategy. For example, Freshdesk automati-cally collects player information for each virtualticket–—including who resolved the ticket, how longit took, and so forth–—which allows rapid comparisonbetween employees and quick assessment as towhether employees met the company goals.

36 K. Robson et al.

6. Final thoughts

Despite all the interest in gamification by managersand scholars, the dearth of both research and pop-ular literatures on the topic is noteworthy. Ourexploration into gamification reveals many interest-ing possible avenues of future research by scholarsand areas of application by practitioners. For exam-ple, the issue of consent to participating in gamifiedexperiences has yet to be explored in research. Insome cases–—as with customers–—consent is implicit.However, when designing gamified experiences foremployees, an important question is whether ex-plicit consent should be offered. What are the majorconsiderations in creating gamified experiences fordifferent groups of stakeholders, such as customersand employees?

In this article we have shown that gamification isa method firms can use to improve and develop theways in which they engage with a variety of stake-holders. Internally these are mostly employees,and externally these are mostly customers. In theexamples presented here, behavior changes wereaccomplished by applying lessons from game designto non-game settings. In particular, success in ga-mification was driven by appropriate alignment ofgamification mechanics, dynamics, and emotionsto specific player types; in contrast, gamificationfailures were linked to poor alignment betweenthese gamification principles and players involvedin the gamified experience. We hope that thisarticle helps managers as they attempt to initiate,direct, and harness the behaviors of individualsin a wide range of organizational settings throughgamification.

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