What is Gamification

Gamification is the use of game-playing elements (such as point scoring, competition or reward earning) in marketing activities to encourage engagement, additional purchases, and brand loyalty. Nearly every interaction with a customer can be gamified to some degree in order to increase engagement and retention.

We see gamification in B2C marketing quite often. Responsive meters on social media profile creation pages and popular applications like Snapchat fostering competition between users for the longest consecutive usage streaks are just two examples of the power of gamification in B2C marketing. With a little creative thinking, methods similar to these can be easily applied to B2B marketing campaigns.

How Does Gamification Help B2B Marketing?

The aim of adding gamification to a marketing campaign is to create a naturally engaging environment for clients. This natural engagement lowers the barrier to entry and gives clients an intrinsic incentive to stick with your product or service over a competitor’s.

Creating intrinsic incentives (such as the desire to earn points that validate the effort put into filling a survey) via gamification along with the extrinsic incentives (like discounts or other external rewards) created by the benefits of using your company’s product results in a more resilient and engaged customer base. Intrinsic incentives also create a sense of familiarity and lend positive associations with your brand. B2B marketing still, at its heart, requires the positive opinions of an individual.

A meta-analysis of gamification’s effectiveness on customer engagement and the conversions that gamification produced from the 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences found that gamification had a positive impact on marketing campaigns. They found that conversation and implementation of gamification in marketing has been skyrocketing since 2012 and has only continued growing. The study found that once gamification has been introduced into an environment, customers tend to engage with them in good faith, building positive associations with the gamified marketing campaign. The study removing the gamified aspects uniformly negatively impacts marketing and retention, meaning that any campaign to which gamified elements are introduced will continue to benefit from the inclusion of said elements for the lifetime of the campaign.

Examples of Gamification in B2B Marketing

Linkedin Profile Strength Indicator

The profile strength indicator on LinkedIn is one of LinkedIn’s strongest tools for extracting data from businesses and individuals using the site. The profile strength indicator is a simple meter that presides over the profile creation process.

As a member shares more and more of their personal data, the reward LinkedIn provides through this meter comes in the form of a higher potential for enriching or lucrative connections.

This profile strength indicator finds its utility in its simplicity. By encouraging users to willingly provide more information, LinkedIn gathers the maximum amount of data from each user. This transaction relies on the user’s intrinsic desire to satisfy the meter’s goal of 100% completion. The approach is much more effective than LinkedIn externally requesting this information with email campaigns that would easily be ignored. Gamification here works to facilitate an otherwise thorny process.

Customer Satisfaction Survey Rewards

PWC found that customers are willing to pay around 13% more for premium products if the company provides an excellent customer experience. This speaks to the indispensable nature of customer satisfaction surveys. These surveys, however, tend to be ignored by the people that would benefit from them the most.

By adding an incentive to customer satisfaction surveys, we drastically increase the likelihood that clients will provide feedback. According to this SurveyMonkey report, customers are more likely to engage with a survey if they can expect a reward upon completion, and among those that reported an increased likelihood of engagement, 94% reported that their incentivized survey answers would be honest and accurate.

These survey rewards create a positive feedback loop. The closer your business comes to the ideal customer experience, the more potential customers will become confirmed conversions, more conversions from happier customers lead to a higher cost ceiling, and more happy customers will lead to more useful data for future satisfaction surveys.

Qualified.com Chatbots

Qualified.com uses their own chatbot to prove the effectiveness of engaging customers as soon as they hit the landing page. Qualified’s chatbots engage with customers by greeting them, answering questions, and providing levity to the often tedious process of shopping online. Chatbots aren’t what we traditionally call a game, but they tick many of the same boxes that the definition of gamification requires. With a little personalization upon setup, a chatbox can become a reward for visiting a business’s site in itself.

Gamification via a chatbot is easy to achieve. Programming these bots with entertaining personalities is one of the simplest ways to create an engaging point of first contact with potential B2B connections. A welcoming bot that opens with a unique greeting each time the site is opened or presents new bits of trivia will easily become a welcome sight to returning potential customers.

Simple games can also be set up within these bots with rewards such as discounts or reward points, lowering the initial barrier to entry for new customers.

Gamification is a simple tool to deploy alongside any marketing effort. It’s the final piece of a difficult marketing campaign puzzle. Marketing relies on engagement, and gamification has proven to increase conversion and engagement across the board. Look for creative ways to use a reward system to entice intrinsic, customer-lead engagement, and your business will find itself enjoying the benefits quite quickly.

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Why game-based learning?

Game-based learning involves training employees by teaching them new skills through game elements. Gamification on the other hand involves applying game-based elements in the non-game context. Gamification elements are used to influence the behavior and attitudes of employees by rewarding them or incentivizing them through badges, trophies, virtual coins, etc. 

Sometimes employees feel frustrated with learning through standard online training resources that involve text-based materials and videos. This makes them disinterested in learning and hence, ultimately affects their course completion.

However, with the help of an LMS, online training professionals can create games that offer personalized learning pathways to complete training on time. Game-based learning and gamification capture the attention of employees and induce a sense of competition among them. It develops strategic thinking, and problem-solving skills and sharpens the memories of employees. It promotes “learning by doing” by making employees witness everything in advance. 

The following are the tips to create games that engage your employees and help them improve their analytical skills.

Roleplay games get employees involved

Role-playing games are one the most powerful ways of teaching complex concepts to employees. 

In role-playing games, the employees take up the role of a specific character, represented as an avatar, and try to understand the perspective of others. For instance, in such games, an employee can take on the role of a customer and see how and what challenges they are facing with their products. 

You can also use such games for training new hires in your sales team and see how a salesman would interact with their customers. You can imitate the real-world scenarios in these games to make them more impactful.

Role-playing games are like branching scenarios where the employees encounter real-life circumstances but in a safe environment. This means they can test their skills and reactions before applying the same in the real world. Such games build confidence in employees and help them perform there day to day job roles better.

It helps employees in getting first-hand experience of real problems. Thus, role-playing games offer immense opportunities for employees to learn. 

Timed games step up the pace

Every organization works under the pressure of meeting deadlines. The value of time can be taught to employees through time games where they have to complete a task within a stipulated time. 

Such games can be used for compliance training. Timers and countdown clocks create a sense of urgency and push employees to finish their tasks on time.  For instance, you can create 10 minutes of online assessment games for employees.

Collaborative games build bonds

It is very important for employees to interact with each other so that they develop social skills like kindness, empathy, and sharing. 

Collaborative games allow employees to not just interact with each other but complete a challenge together. Such games offer the following advantages:

• Reduce the cognitive load of employees as many employees work together to solve a problem.
• Promotes teamwork in the organization which leads to creativity and innovation. When different employees are made to work together, they bring in new ideas and perspectives and thereby leading to collective intelligence. 
• Motivates employees to continue their eLearning journey without any breaks. If an employee feels demotivated, he can be given motivation doses by his fellow team members. 
• Encourages healthy competition.

For example, you can create a game for the product designing team to create prototypes. Also, you can use such games for eLearning projects for the employees. 

Decision games stretch decision-making muscles

You can create games for employees that help develop negotiation and decision-making skills. Employees need to learn to take decisions on their own and decide on a specific course of action. Decision games develop leadership and soft skills in employees. 

Decision games can be designed in the following ways:

• Ask questions and provide optimal choices to them. See how they understand and approach a question. 
• Let your employees evaluate every option to determine the best possible route. 
• Reward employees in case they make the right decision.

Such games can be used in building the soft skills of the sales team. The best part about these games is that they make employees think and rethink. In case they choose the wrong option, provide them with strong reasoning and supplement the same in eLearning content. Allow them to revisit their performance card generated at the end of the game. 

Detective games encourage advanced reasoning

Mystery and gripping stories attract people. And this holds true even for the employees in your organization. You can create detective games or games like puzzles, mysteries, or challenges that develop problem-solving skills in your employees. Such games are the best to use for compliance training. 

For instance, you can create a mystery game where they’ve to find out the violation of which law, rule or regulation led to some bad consequences. Such games can be both individual and team-based. Create avatars that make them feel like a hero. This will make them feel more responsible. Also, it is a good way to teach compliance to employees.

Usually, employees don’t like compliance training as it requires memorizing a lot of information and facts. But by designing such games you can ensure that employees enjoy learning rather than taking it more as a burden. 

Another way of using these games is for safety training of employees in industries like hospitality, healthcare, etc. Employees can be made to investigate an accident and find out the cause behind the event. Using their eLearning content they can decide the best course of action to deal with the problem.

Competitive games raise the stakes

Today, competition is increasing rapidly, not just in the eLearning industry but also in the organization itself. Technological advancements, innovations, and the development of new products are the reasons behind the escalating competition.

If the industry is experiencing such tectonic shifts and tension, then you should develop a competitive spirit in your employees as well because they are the face of your organization. 

You can create competitive games for employees that involve branching scenarios, multiple-choice-based question games, and so on. The employees who play well can be rewarded with trophies, flashcards, virtual coins, badges, etc. Display their names on the leader boards so that they feel a sense of accomplishment. 

Such games can boost other employees to complete their online training on time and access the online training resources regularly. 

Now go play!

Games are the best way to foster the engagement and interest of employees. This is more helpful for training the millennial workforce who loves playing games. It does not just help you to bring their focus to online training but also makes them utilize their skills and knowledge in the best possible way. Hence, game-based learning and gamification aid in achieving training goals and make employees more energized and engaged.

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• For ambitious salespeople, motivation can wane when sales are down or no one is picking up the phone. Sometimes, extrinsic motivation can revitalize their intrinsic motivation and bring fresh energy to your office.
• By bolstering their intrinsic motivation to succeed with extrinsic motivators like cash, prizes, or bragging rights, gamification helps sales teams conquer boredom, strengthen performance, and bring excitement into their daily tasks.

Motivating your sales employees can feel impossible during a sales slump. Sales teams thrive on performance and progress, so it’s easy for the whole team to get into a rut when sales are down. That’s why experienced sales managers leverage sales games and contests — to inspire their sales teams and freshen up their sales approach.

Still, coming up with great sales contest ideas is a challenge. The wrong sales game can leave reps rolling their eyes and feeling even less driven to contact leads. However, with a little thought and intention, you can create unique sales contests that inspire your team and turn their numbers around in no time.

Why Does Gamification Work for Sales Teams?

Naturally, most people like to be recognized and rewarded for their work. Still, many of the rewards sales teams get aren’t immediate. After an afternoon of rejections, it’s difficult to find the intrinsic motivation to keep pushing for the sale.

Goal-oriented, ambitious, and competitive salespeople often find gamification taps into their natural instincts and offers satisfaction for completing everyday tasks. By bolstering their intrinsic motivation to succeed with extrinsic motivators like cash, prizes, or bragging rights, gamification helps sales teams conquer boredom, strengthen performance, and bring excitement into their daily tasks.

According to Scientific American, the best sales contest ideas also incorporate these three gamification elements to boost motivation:

• Autonomy: Give sales professionals a choice to participate, or choose how to participate, while reinforcing that they are in control of their own success.
• Value: Assigning value to an action can encourage ongoing motivation for completing that task.
• Competence: Consider the capability, skills, and resources necessary to complete a task.

Top 3 Creative Sales Games & Contest Ideas

Here are three unique sales games certain to inspire your team today.

1. Perfect Pair

Contests can feel unfair when new hires are competing against experienced veterans. Knowing who the best performers are can often demotivate other reps from participating in sales contests, knowing that their efforts won’t be recognized.

Instead of pitting all sales people against one another, pair up each newbie with a veteran and allow them to compete as a team. This encourages your motivated veterans to offer mentorship and guidance to their newbie partner, so your whole team improves vital skills.

Make a list of your sales team based on when they joined the team. Then, pair up more experienced employees with less experienced employees they may not have regular contact with. Encourage veterans to listen in on newbie’s calls and provide coaching. Then, offer to buy lunch for the winning team to reinforce the new connection.

Even beyond the day’s sales games, this setup will help your team members build relationships with each other and foster feelings of teamwork and higher morale. Plus, it can help you identify which of your veterans are ready for more responsibility or a promotion.

2. School the Trainer

Learning new sales skills is a must for your team, and a contest is the perfect way to help your team flex their new abilities.

Prepare your team for upcoming training by announcing a School the Trainer contest. In this contest, you’ll have salespeople focus on taking and practicing new actions they’ve learned in their workshop. Start by setting up a points system that celebrates each step of their new skill.

For example, if your team is learning about cross-selling, you can use this point system:

• 1 point for mentioning another product on a phone call or email
• 3 points for connecting the lead to another department for more information on that product
• 5 points for a successful cross-sell order

Throughout the contest, have trainers and coaches review sales calls to offer extra tips and learning opportunities. This can help your team integrate new skills like upselling, gaining SQLs, or building rapport more quickly and effectively. As your trainers and coaches review calls, tally up points and surprise the top three performers with a prize.

3. For a Favor

Selling relies on making the ask, and asking customers for a favor is a great way to improve relationships. Rather than focusing solely on making the sale, create a contest where the goal is to make multiple asks on every call. Assign one point to every request your salesperson makes, including micro-commitments like asking to send a follow-up email, scheduling a call for another time, or asking for a referral.

Research has found that when salespeople ask customers for a favor, customers are more likely to feel there’s a reciprocal relationship — and they’re more inclined to move forward with a negotiation. This supports other research indicating that asking for favors increases likeability and can be disarming in personal relationships.

As coaches listen to your team’s calls, encourage them to showcase when salespeople do a great job in gaining a micro-commitment. Then, tally up the points and reward the winner with a favor from their boss.

Encourage Your Sales team to Succeed With Sales Games

For ambitious salespeople, motivation can wane when sales are down or no one is picking up the phone. Sometimes, extrinsic motivation can revitalize their intrinsic motivation and bring fresh energy to your office. One of the best ways to boost motivation for sales teams is by gamifying their tasks with a sales contest.

Thankfully, you don’t have to spend hours coming up with your own sales games. Try out these awesome contests to inspire your team. If you are looking for sales competition software platforms, check out our Product Selection Tool for the right sales competition platform. The results could yield more than better numbers; they could lead to better collaboration and a more engaged team.

Trending Sales Gamification Software

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Unfortunately, participation in wellness programs is low. Only 20% to 40% of eligible individuals participate in a program in any given year. Adding incentives, including gamification, does make a difference.

Read more: Gamification in the Workplace: Why and How to Use It

In fact, employers who do not use incentives have a median employee participation rate of 20%, compared with 40% participation for employers who use rewards and 73% for employers who use penalties and/or rewards.

That’s where gamification comes in. By adding game elements to your wellness program, you will make it inherently more engaging and encourage people to participate.

For example, when gamification is added to training, employee motivation increases to 83%, and boredom drops to just 10%. More than that, 88% of people say that gamification in software they use at work makes them happier employees. Here’s what you need to know about adding gamification to your wellness program.

Why Gamification Makes a Difference

If you’ve ever spent much longer than you intended playing a game on your smartphone or computer, that wasn’t an accident. Games are deliberately engaging for a reason. They use specific challenges, strategies, and design elements to make you want to keep playing.

For instance, giving out points or rewards for completing challenges gives players a sense of satisfaction. If they can trade in those points for helpful items or skills that make it easier or more fun to play the game, then that further incentivizes them to keep playing. These are just a few examples of the ways that games use specific mechanisms to encourage people to play again and again.

Gamifying wellness programs uses those same strategies to encourage participation. Here are some different ideas for how gamification can be applied to wellness programs:

• Allow employees to collect points as they complete tasks in the wellness program. Once they hit a certain number of points, allow them to redeem the points for company swag or other prizes.
• Institute a leaderboard and have employees compete to see who can reach their goals the fastest.
• Offer digital badges for employees hitting certain milestones within the wellness program. Make these badges visible on their profile, so other people can see them.
• In exchange for completing a health risk assessment, offer a credit that can be put towards a gym membership, health insurance premium, or other wellness-related expense.
• Set up the wellness program to send weekly or monthly “report cards” on participants’ progress. This will remind them that the program exists and nudge them to keep returning to it.
• Offer a lottery or sweepstakes prize for wellness program participants. The more challenges they complete, the more entries they earn, and the greater their chances of winning the prize.

Read more on TechRepublic: What Is the ROI of Your Company’s Health?

Tips for Incentivizing Employee Wellness

Gamification is just one of the strategies you can leverage to increase participation in your wellness program. Indeed, gamification is often more effective when used in combination with other strategies, especially when it comes to situations that may not be inherently incentivized, such as wellness programs.

As an example, smoking is one of the areas that is getting a lot of attention in wellness programs right now. Smoking has a proven negative effect on employees’ health, which increases costs for employers. It also cuts into work time due to smoke breaks.

For these reasons, many employers offer discounts on health insurance premiums for people who do not smoke, or who are working on quitting. They may also tack on surcharges for people who do smoke. Some employers are even going so far as to ban tobacco use on and off the job.

Other employers support wellness expenses financially, either by offering wellness credits up front or reimbursements after the fact. Some companies take a more open-ended approach, providing employees a set amount of credit per month or quarter that they can put toward health-related expenses. Other employers are more specific as to what the discounts or reimbursements apply to.

Companies with large offices that already offer on-site activities are incorporating wellness offerings into their perks. This may look like an on-site gym, free weekly yoga classes, monthly visits from a masseuse, healthier food offerings in the cafeteria, and more.

Having these wellness offerings conveniently located reduces the barrier to entry and makes it easy to make healthier choices. It also encourages employees to track their health via the wellness program.

Read more: Gamification Badges Are Not Digital Credentials: A Q&A With Jarin Schmidt of Credly

Top Gamification Software Recommendations

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What Is a Digital Credential?

TechnologyAdvice: Let’s start with a baseline question so we’re talking about the same thing: what is a digital credential?

Jarin Schmidt: A credential is a third-party claim about what someone knows and can do. For example, an employer or training organization, an association or an academic institution will confer a credential upon an individual as proof of the individual’s abilities and competencies. Through digital credentials, skills and knowledge are verified via a trusted, common language platform like Credly.

This enables individuals to have greater control over their career trajectory by having verified, trusted proof of learning outcomes. Individuals can determine how they want to leverage their earned digital credentials throughout their career paths.

Read more on CIO Insight: IT Certifications vs Degree — What Should You Do?

TA: From what I gather, gamification badges are company or even departmentally meaningful, whereas credentials are industry-wide or nearly universal. Other than building an individual’s resume, how might companies use digital credentials?

JS: That’s a great way of putting it. To drill down even further, gamification is about applying game principles in non-game settings to drive behaviors. Digital credentials are used to unlock opportunities by adding transparency to learning and experiences. Digital credentials have an advantage over gamification badges because they bring actionable value into the workplace. Other ways that companies may use digital credentials include:

• Internal career paths: HR professionals can use digital credentials to establish employees who are advancing in their roles quickly. This enables teams to develop succession plans and have visibility into qualified internal hires for upcoming open positions.
• Third-party verification: Digital credentials are not self-reported and prove an individual has mastered, experienced, or attained the requirements of the specific badge.
• Informed outside hiring decisions: Organizations can rely on digital credentials to provide accurate, up-to-date previews of the skills required within their workforce. By understanding and mapping out their current workforce skills and needs, organizations can focus on filling skills gaps in their workforce.
• Employee development: Digital credentials provide a path for employees to develop specific expertise while in their current roles.

Read more: Best Recruiting Software & Tools

TA: I can see clear benefits for both individuals who are earning credentials, hiring managers who need to verify distinct skill sets, and companies who build credentials for their products. Are there other use cases or benefits that I’m overlooking?

JS: Digital credentials can also be used within educational institutions to confirm expertise in an area that traditionally wouldn’t warrant credit or perhaps a full diploma. Colleges and universities can use credentials within coursework, or as supplemental programs, to provide students applicable and verified skills before they enter the workforce.

On the other hand, educational institutions can also garner valuable data and insight from digital credentials — such as understanding program success, determining the changing needs of skills and requirements for their students, and monitoring student engagement.

Additionally, digital credentials can also be a significant driver of brand awareness for companies. Individuals want to share their achievements, and digital credentials provide an opportunity to share success through many means, such as listing them on resumes, including them in email signatures, highlighting them on social media, and much more.

Incorporating digital credentials into company-branded social media strategies can drive earner-led brand awareness and increase engagement with the individuals who earn a company-specific badge.

The Purpose of Gamification Tools

TA: Do you think that gamification still has a place in the workforce?

JS: Gamification can still be an useful tool for companies internally, because gamification is about creating feedback loops and driving employee behaviors. These factors can have a positive impact on short-term employee success. Where gamification falls short is in the employee growth journey, and fostering value outside the organization it is implemented in.

Digital credentials communicate verified capabilities and signal more widely what an individual can do on the job. Digital credentials also light the way toward additional learning, reskilling, and upskilling opportunities that can enhance talent retention and management — adding value to both employees and the company.

TA: Many companies have invested in learning management systems and custom training tools. Do digital credential systems like Credly replace these systems, or how might those work together?

JS: Credly and its customers partner to provide comprehensive training opportunities with one consistent language of verification. Credly has integrations with many learning management systems, like Canvas and Moodle, to ease the credentialing process — making it seamless for customers to automatically issue digital badges within their learning management systems.

A combination LMS and digital credential system allows customers to create, manage, and monitor all aspects of credentialing, certificate, or badge programs.

Read more: Best Employee Engagement Tools & Platforms

TA: I can imagine digital credentials working in place of, or in addition to, technical interviews for developers and skills tests during interviews. How does Credly affect the hiring process for highly technical or skilled positions?

JS: Digital credentials accelerate the hiring process for highly technical and/or skilled positions. With the right systems in place, candidates with credentials are positioned at the top of the list. This eliminates tedious resume reviews for recruiters, who are just trying to discern the most qualified candidate for the role.

Digital credentials empower recruiters and hiring managers with the best candidates for a role versus who just looks good on paper.

About Jarin Schmidt

Jarin helps shape the future of documenting and promoting skills by leading the product, engineering, and design teams at Credly. With a background in design, strategy, and product development, Jarin is passionate about helping people tell their unique professional stories through emerging technology so they can discover the most rewarding opportunities.

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Holding consumers’ attention through the continuous noise of competing marketing messages represents another avenue where engagement is critical to success. Salesforce found that 80% of customers felt that the experience they have with a company is as important as the products the company offers. Modern consumers are fickle and spoiled for choice. Companies that invest in engaging their customers will keep those customers.

Gamification in customer loyalty programs

Keeping your customers loyal is marketing 101, and yet companies often spend much less on customer retention than customer acquisition. Forbes reports that it can cost up to five times more to attract a new customer than retain an existing account, and other research shows that customer retention can pay off between 25 and 125 percent annually, while existing customers are 60-70 percent more likely to convert than new customers. Although that research shows it’s easier to retain than to find new, companies often focus on getting that next big customer rather than growing their existing relationships.

Loyalty programs can be found everywhere from your grocery store and coffee shop to enterprise mobile apps. These tools usually rely on a point or badge system to reward customers for purchasing and sharing their experience with others. Common rewards include discounts, free gifts, free shipping, or other valuable prizes for engagement.

By targeting loyalty behaviors and offering relevant rewards, customer loyalty gamification provides an excellent method for rewarding your most engaged customers. Those rewards make the customer feel that you value them, which increases customer loyalty to the brand. As an intrinsic motivator, brand loyalty decreases the need to provide discounts and coupons and increases overall customer engagement.

It’s this cycle of give and take that makes customer engagement and loyalty programs so important. A company that values its customers — and shows it through tangible rewards — often has the most vocal supporters, which boosts brand awareness and revenue growth.

Gamification for marketing and user experience

For marketers, grabbing the attention of consumers is more difficult now than ever before. Though increased engagement can be achieved through savvy social media usage, creating engaging user experiences is often a more reliable strategy to ensure long-term engagement.

These strategies can range from engaging push ads that encourage consumers to interact with personalized content to useful functions embedded within an online application. Consumer loyalty mobile apps are increasingly engaging customers by enabling them to complete common time-consuming transactions on their phones in a frictionless experience that builds trust and loyalty.

• The Starbucks mobile app sends your order to a nearby store for pickup
• The Walgreens app lets you renew prescriptions, provides you with updates on prescription status, and lets you quickly order prints of digital photos.
• The Hilton app can work as your hotel room key

All of these features make customers more likely to stay loyal to brands because the apps make their lives easier, and they often earn rewards and discounts while doing their everyday activities.

A customer who can quickly order their favorite coffee from an app is more likely to return because of the added convenience. This positive customer experience is then further bolstered by decreased wait times at the counter, the barista who recognizes the order, and the eventual discount for accumulating repeat orders.

Companies that understand what customers want and reward them for their engagement with the brand at key purchase and conversion moments are putting gamification principles to good use in ways that bolster their brand.

Gamification software for improved customer experience

Today’s gamification principles are often built into marketing, user experience, and customer loyalty campaigns, but you need to make sure that the software and gamification technology you choose to run your campaigns provides the right type of feedback. TechnologyAdvice can help you find the right gamification vendor for stand alone apps or integrated loyalty strategies. Answer a few questions on our gamification software Product Selection Tool page, and one of our unbiased TechnologyAdvisors will reward you with a short list of 5 vendors who meet your needs. It’s fast and free.

Top Gamification Software Recommendations

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Gamification is changing how companies build software and how consumers interact with it, not just at home, but at work as well.

To get an insider’s perspective on this revolution, we spoke with Nicole about her theories on the science of fun. Listen to our short interview then read on for more about why gamification works so well (hint: you’ll use brain power).

If you’re interested in hearing more from Nicole, check out her website, 4k2f.com. And if you need a gamification platform for your own business, check out these great options.

What chemical makes you happy?

There are four major chemicals in the brain that influence our happiness (DOSE):

1. Dopamine
2. Oxytocin
3. Serotonin
4. Endorphins.

As Nicole explains, each plays a different role in happiness. And guess what? They are all triggered by gamified experiences. Let’s dig a little deeper.

Dopamine is what we normally think of as the happiness drug. However, that’s a big misconception. Dopamine is actually involved more with anticipation than the actual “happiness” feeling. Nicole describes it as a striving emotion.

Oxytocin is the neurochemical that has allowed us to become social creatures. It makes us feel empathy which helps us feel close and bonded to others when it’s released.

If you’re in a good mood, you’ve got serotonin to thank. And if you’re in a bad mood, you’ve got serotonin to blame. It’s a regulator. Interestingly, Nicole explains, 80 percent of serotonin exists in the gut, and is governed by your state of hunger (yes, this is why you’re hangry).

Endorphins are responsible for masking pain or discomfort, which explains their association with the “fight or flight” response. When it comes to designing happiness, endorphins help you “power through.” Nicole, for example, is an avid runner. Endorphins allow her to push farther and harder as she works towards distance goals.

Together these chemicals create desirable brain states (and keep people coming back).

Experiences that release the DOSE neurochemicals make us happy, which makes us want more of the same. Does a desire to return to the same experience sound like a desire you probably have for your customers? Yes, it certainly does: customer loyalty. Gamified user experiences created with neuroscience in mind keep consumers coming back for more.

Whether those experiences are created to keep employees returning to your LMS for more gamified training, or to keep readers revisiting your site for more gamified content, this scientifically-backed approach works. It’s the reason gamification is expected to grow to a $5.5 billion industry by the end of 2018, and the reason you should be thinking about how to include gamified experiences into your technology.

The Takeaways:

• There are four primary chemicals in the brain that effect happiness: dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins
• By designing gamified experiences that activate these chemicals, you can increase your users’ happiness and loyalty

* * *

Listen to more episodes of the TechnologyAdvice podcast on SoundCloud and iTunes, or follow us on Twitter, @Technology_Adv. If you are in the market for gamification software, we can help. Use our nifty Gamification Software Product Selection Tool to find the gamification software to best fit your needs.

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Before comparing any specific LMS solutions, you should list specific learning goals for your organization. These might include:

• Safety certification updates
• Regulatory compliance
• Internal extended learning opportunities
• Public education for brand awareness or e-commerce

Defining your goals will help you choose the LMS features that work best for your company. Not every company will need government compliance trainings (HIPAA, OSHA, etc.), and others may want to make their training available for subscription access.

ALSO READ:  LMS and Blended Learning: How Should Your Company Use Them?

Whatever your needs, these eight are the most important LMS features to look for. We’ve also included a few software choices in each section that include the corresponding features. If you want to speed up your research, use our LMS Product Selection Tool. You’ll receive five software recommendations that are tailored to your needs.

Key LMS Features

1. Course creation

It seems like this would be included in all LMS software out there, but the most basic definition of an LMS does not include a course creation module. Some options require you to bring your own content, which means you’ll need to build videos and content in a separate system and import them into the program. Finding an LMS that includes course creation features will help streamline your processes.

Suggested Platforms: Canvas, Bridge

2. Skills/Certification tracking

Skills and certification tracking is one of the most important LMS features for nearly every kind of user. It’s nice to train your employees, but you’ll have no baseline for measuring performance and improvement if you aren’t tracking skills development and certifications — or at the very least, course completion. These features can increase government compliance by making your completed and pending certifications available via a single exportable spreadsheet. Tracking skills learned and certifications completed also gives you the power to report on employee progress, showing the immediate return on your efforts.

Suggested Platforms: MATRIX LMS, BirdDogHR

3. Mobile learning

It’s surprising to learn that some folks don’t have a computer at home, but a helpful way around this pitfall is mobile-ready learning. When your LMS features mobile capabilities, including responsive design or native mobile apps, learners can participate in training from any location using whatever device they do own. This is especially helpful for certifications that require learning outside of the work day, or for distributed teams where learning can occur between calls or visits.

Suggested Platforms: Cornerstone LMS, Litmos LMS

4. Asynchronous learning

One of the best features for improving engagement and knowledge retention is asynchronous learning — the ability for learners to complete course work at their own pace. This means they don’t have to be present at a set time for a lecture or to talk with an instructor. Combining videos, online readings, messaging, and question/answer forums where students can engage with the material at their own pace and on their own timelines helps promote buy-in and improve return.

Suggested Platforms: LearnUpon, Grovo

5. Gamification

Learning for learning’s sake is a great idea in theory, but in the real world (where your employees live), you’ll probably want to incentivize the process. Gamification features can turn learning into a friendly competition. While it may not make your subject matter any more interesting, adding game features to your courses and training programs will engage learners, speed them through the modules, and increase compliance.

Suggested Platforms: Thought Industries, Docebo

ALSO READ: 5 Ways to Increase Employee Engagement with Your LMS

6. Video conferencing

Students who need one-on-one attention or have complicated questions will appreciate an LMS that includes video conferencing features. While messaging boards and email may cover most of your communication needs, video conferencing lets you have difficult conversations. Your company will appreciate that you don’t have to pay for an outside subscription to communicate face-to-face with your students.

Suggested Platforms: eFront, eloomi

7. Social learning/message boards

Like so much of what we do everyday, learning is social, and your LMS should include features that help your students learn from one another. This not only enhances the learning process, but is a great way to reduce strain on your trainers. By adding messaging boards and social learning features, your students can ask and answer questions in a forum setting. The best way to show your understanding of a topic is by teaching it, so let your students teach each other.

Suggested Platforms: TalentLMS, LearnUpon LMS

8. E-commerce and subscriptions

Many LMS programs provide a channel for publishing your content to a wider audience, so you can monetize what you’ve already built. In this case, look for an LMS that lets you gate learning content. To complete a course or learning module, users provide their email address, make a one-time payment, or agree to a monthly subscription. Adding a subscription course to your site is a great way to bring in recurring income using your collective intelligence.

Suggested Platforms: Docebo, LatitudeLearning

* * *

Building your education and training programs takes planning and care, but there are plenty of systems out there to help you along the way. Make sure the software you choose has all the LMS features you need to build and maintain your program and maybe even let your employees self-serve.

Still not sure which LMS features your company will need? Browse and compare options using our Learning Management Product Selection Tool.

Top Gamification Software Recommendations

The post 8 Important LMS Features for Your E-Learning Program appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

Intrinsic motivation — which refers to a person’s internal drive to perform an action purely because of the enjoyment they get from it — plays a foundational role in Self-Determination Theory (SDT). It’s one of the key psychological theories for gamification designers, as well as many social psychologists.

In a broad sense, SDT posits that three psychological needs internally motivate humans to take action. These needs are not only essential for motivation without external influences, but also for mental well-being.

• Competence
• Autonomy
• Relatedness

In SDT theory, intrinsic motivation is the opposite of extrinsic motivation. As you might expect, extrinsic motivation refers to stimuli that originate from external influences, such as money or other types of rewards. While the two types are often painted as distinct entities, the reality is often more complex.

For businesses, understanding intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation is critical to implementing an effective gamification program. It’s also central to gaining a better understanding of what motivates your employees to engage with their work.

Intrinsic motivation for business

As mentioned before, SDT identifies three universal needs that intrinsically motivate all humans. Dan Pink, author of the influential book Drive introduces a fourth: purpose. In his 2009 TED Talk, Pink explains the need to understand and promote intrinsic motivation. As he says, “There’s a mismatch between what science knows and what business does.”

You can see the author’s entire speech here:

According to social science research, external rewards are not the best motivators for white collar workers. Of course employees want their basic needs like food and shelter covered, but once everyday comforts are addressed, pay raises, bonuses, and other monetary prizes don’t consistently encourage long term motivation.

Yet a majority of the business world still relies on extrinsic motivation to encourage their employees to be productive.

Traditional extrinsic rewards work well for motivating workers to perform repetitive tasks — studies have found that rewards don’t undermine internal motivation to perform uninteresting tasks — but when applied to job functions that require innovation, these rewards can actually harm intrinsic motivation.

If businesses want to move beyond the current landscape of employee malaise, identifying and catering to intrinsic motivation is the only way forward.

Real-world intrinsic motivation

If external rewards can harm intrinsic motivation, how do you encourage intrinsic motivation? This is where well thought-out gamification comes into play.

Games satisfy people’s needs for relatedness, purpose, autonomy, and competence. Consequently, gamification can successfully tap into people’s intrinsic motivation by emphasizing certain actions through a software-interface and workplace structure.

But enough with the abstract psychology. Let’s look at some examples.

#1: Quora

Need: Relatedness

Started by two ex-Facebook employees in 2009, Quora is a question-and-answer website with a heavy focus on technology. The site uses popularity to rank questions in users’ feeds, similar to how social media platforms display posts. Quora enjoys strong community participation and has grown significantly in the past several years, boasting 300 million monthly users in 2018.

This is the secret to Quora’s success — the community not only features notable experts from a variety of industries, it also has tons of incredibly active, engaged members. Quora users want to share their knowledge and interact with people who have the same interests as them, and the platform lets them do that, satisfying their need for human connection and relationship.

Quora reinforces this behavior by awarding credits (read: points) to users for participating in the community. Once users accrue enough points, they can use them to upvote a question so more people answer it or ask experts specific questions.

Instead of trying to encourage some new type of behavior through extrinsic rewards, Quora tries to understand why people come to their site in the first place so they can play to that motivation through gamification.

#2: Ecosia

Need: Purpose

After finishing university, Ecosia founder and CEO Christian Kroll traveled around the world to get ideas for a social enterprise. Christian spent time in Southeast Asia and South America, where he learned about deforestation and how it accelerates climate change.

Christian had already tried starting a nonprofit search engine in Nepal. He wanted to raise money for local NGOs, but the country’s unreliable electricity kept him from continuing the project. When he returned home to Germany, he pivoted his search engine idea to raise money for planting trees, and Ecosia was born.

Ecosia is a search engine that plants trees with profits generated from advertising revenue. Every time you perform a search on Ecosia, a tree counter in the top right corner of your screen updates. This shows you how many trees you’ve planted with your searches.

Using Ecosia makes doing good for the planet into a game of getting a higher tree count. The tree counter gives people a microdose of purpose while they perform a routine task. It may sound pie-in-the-sky, but Ecosia’s model works.

A recent blog post from the company’s COO announced their revenue nearly doubled from 2018 to 2019, allowing them to plant a tree every 0.8 seconds. To date, Ecosia has planted over 70 million trees with searches and has expanded its investments into solar power and permaculture projects.

#3: Toggl

Need: Autonomy

It’s human nature to try to control our surroundings, which is why autonomy is an important part of intrinsic motivation. But having control over even the basic habits of our lives, much less our entire environment, can be incredibly challenging, if not impossible.

This doesn’t stop us from seeking autonomy whenever we can. So it shouldn’t be surprising that granting employees more freedom in the workplace has been linked to several positive effects, including greater feelings of personal accomplishment and a reduction in emotional exhaustion.

At Toggl, an Estonian company that makes a handy time tracking product, ditching what CEO Alari Aho calls “Kindergarten Syndrome” is essential to helping workers be as happy and productive as they can be.

In an interview with Remote.co, Aho said, “If one’s daily routine is different and tasks do not require co-working with others, let the employee choose when and how they do their things. It’s about productivity, not hours spent in office Freedom of action combined with a lot of trust keeps away the ‘Kindergarten Syndrome,’ which would force managers to control and monitor many aspects of the team members’ lives. We don’t want to do that.”

Instead, Toggl uses a results-only work environment (ROWE). Taking this approach to culture and corporate organization means managers focus on measurable results, not traditional performance indicators such as hours clocked and days absent. Aho says Toggl tested this method out before taking the plunge, but since then they’ve seen improvements to employees’ happiness and productivity as well as the quality and diversity of talent Toggl hires.

Toggl’s ROWE approach doesn’t include any gamification, but it correctly targets intrinsic motivation.

#4: Duolingo

Need: Competence

Games and learning are inherently tied together. In fact, games can be optimal vehicles for learning. One of the reasons games (even educational ones) are so popular is that they combine the enjoyment of discovery with the natural desire to gain competency.

With this in mind, it’s no surprise that learning programs and applications — such as Lumosity, Khan Academy, and Coursera — are so prevalent. Using games to learn just makes sense.

The free language learning app Duolingo makes for an excellent example. In order to keep users engaged, Duolingo uses progress visualization (known as skill trees) to show users how far they’ve come after each lesson. As users complete lessons, they earn experience points which are used to unlock the next level.

Duolingo users also have four “lives,” which they lose each time they make a mistake in a course module. Lose all four and you have to start over.

Duolingo currently boasts some 300 million users and was named a Fast Company most innovative company for 2013, 2017, and 2018. Forbes also named Duolingo a next billion-dollar startup for 2019.

An aside for extrinsic rewards

Understanding intrinsic motivation should be the goal of every business. Finding out what makes your employees tick translates into a better, more fulfilling workplace culture. However, extrinsic rewards aren’t bad per se — they simply serve a different purpose.

As our understanding of what motivates humans improves, so does our understanding of how we should structure rewards, positive feedback, and other employee interactions. Seek out the intrinsic motivations of your employees and you’ll create a better platform for them to succeed.

Photo credit: OpenEye via photopin cc

Top Gamification Software Recommendations

The post 4 Real-World Examples That Explain Intrinsic Motivation appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

To find the right learning management software for your business, check out our LMS Product Selection Tool. After answering a few questions, you’ll get an unbiased list of software tailored to your company’s needs.

Table of contents

1. Connecting employees through an LMS
2. Making training effective with microlearning
3. Using gamification to create a clear path
4. Adapting with skills assessments
5. Empowering aging workers with flexibility
6. eLearning opens new doors for everyone

1. Connecting employees through an LMS

The buddy system can be very effective when it comes to training and reaching professional goals. This is particularly true when you pair up a newbie with a more experienced worker.

That’s the theory Peter Trebek, CEO of GoTranscript, had when he started matching new sales reps with more experienced ones during onboarding.

“Chances are, the veteran has already asked the same questions that the new employee has and can answer them quickly with real-life experience,” said Trebek.

This system carries over into the digital world with learning management systems (LMS) that feature mentoring, coaching, and communication features. Many companies group employees together by training class, team, or department, creating an unhindered flow of communication. New hires feel confident that they can get the help they need while tapping into the knowledge and experience of established coworkers.

ALSO READ: 8 Important LMS Features for Your E-Learning Program

3 Cooperative Learning Management Systems

360Learning

360Learning is a collaborative LMS where users can share feedback, ask questions, and collaborate on their assignments. You can create custom content on the system or import modules from other sources. With built-in feedback and analytics, you can identify which courses are providing the most value and which need improvement.

Orblogic

Orblogic is an enterprise LMS that lets you build courses in the platform using a variety of content, including videos, PDFs, and PowerPoint presentations. It also includes a compliance option to train your employees on all of your regulatory requirements. The system also tracks course completion, so you’ll know which employees have completed which modules.

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Docebo

Docebo is a cloud LMS that gives you full customization of your eLearning experience. The platform is also available on mobile, so your employees can learn wherever they are. There are gamification techniques you can integrate into the system for better employee engagement and retention.

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2. Making training effective with microlearning

In his book Brain Science: The Forgetting Curve, writer, professor, and consultant Art Kohn outlined a scenario experienced by many employees. After going through all the required training and doing exceptionally well, a worker will return to their office or worksite and notice that they begin to forget most of what they learned.

Kohn reported that within one hour of a training, participants forget around 50 percent of the information. That increases to 70 percent after 24 hours and 90 percent after a week.

Effective methods and regular reinforcement through microlearning, smaller modules completed over several minutes, is the cure to keeping these neural networks firing. Jim Duckett of DHx Software, an eFrontPro reseller, may have said it best: “The information is easier to digest and increases overall knowledge retention.”

3. Using gamification to create a clear path

If someone gave you the choice of playing a game or going to work, you would probably choose the game. Games are fun, and gamification has added a new level of engagement to LMS platforms that has proven to be beneficial in a professional environment.

In 2014, Cisco invested in a social media training program for contractors and employees. The program included more than 46 courses, which was overwhelming for participants. Most were not sure where to begin, so the company chose to gamify by adding levels of certification. They created three main levels, Specialist, Strategist, and Master, and four sub-levels.

Team challenges encouraged friendly competition. This provided motivation and gave participants a clear set of steps to take to finish the program. Since implementing gamification, more than 650 Cisco employees have completed over 13,000 courses and received certification.

Gamification programs that improve retention

Bunchball

Bunchball is a gamification program that can be integrated into almost any third-party LMS to improve learners’ retention and understanding. Using rewards systems, teamwork, and positive feedback, the software motivates employees and keeps them engaged.

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WorkStride

WorkStride also integrates with LMS platforms to provide gamification and keep employees motivated. Along with training, the program also promotes recognition, incentives, wellness, and safety with different gamification programs.

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4. Adapting with skills assessments

LMS platforms have made it possible to record, store, and sort skills to ensure that employees are utilized to their fullest potential. Adobe discussed the benefits of using an LMS to improve its workforce at the 2017 Pluralsight Live End User Conference. Their eLearning system allowed them to retrain 25 percent of their technical staff to provide support for a new project.

Companies need to be able to adapt when new opportunities appear, especially those in fast-paced industries like technology. An LMS allows businesses to remain adaptable and dynamic. They can quickly review a list of employees who have the skills they need or find areas that are lacking and provide training to fill the gap. These processes would take far longer and be much more expensive without the help of eLearning.

5. Empowering aging workers with flexibility

A 2018 AARP study found that of the 170 million people expected to be in the workforce by 2026, 42 million will be 55 and older. eLearning has created a unique situation for these older workers, as it enables them to work remotely when necessary. It allows older people to remain comfortably employed without the demands of a full-time job.

Many organizations are putting older workers in training roles that they can manage online from home. This also allows experienced workers to share their expertise and help maintain a skilled workforce.

eLearning has other benefits for older people as well. Education is proven to fight off depression thanks to social interactions they may not otherwise get. This can have profound socio-economic benefits for older generations. It’s one of the many ways companies are using eLearning to improve their business and the lives of their employees.

eLearning opens new doors for everyone

The advent of eLearning has opened new doors in education and business training. The tools available today can be tailored to all ages. They improve the way we teach and learn and can create job opportunities for people who otherwise may not have any. It’s a powerful testament to how our lives can improve through technology. As more organizations get on board, new innovations will push eLearning further into the spotlight. It will be exciting to see where we take it.

Interested in seeing which eLearning tools would work for your company? Check out our Learning Management Product Selection Tool to find the right eLearning software solution for your business.

Top Gamification Software Recommendations

The post 5 Innovative Ways Companies are Using eLearning appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.