Virtually everyone loves a game, especially one that is hard to lose. A recent survey estimates that as many as 65% of American adults play mobile games regularly to alleviate stress or boredom. If games can help people solve problems, it may not come as a surprise that games can help transform the retail sector, too. Gamification in retail is not a new concept, but the latest technologies certainly make it easier (and more fun). This guide shows retailers how gamification can improve their customer experience and their bottom line.
Gamification Basics
Games work as a concept of providing a reward in exchange for solving a problem or winning a contest. Gamification offers a similar experience. Retailers add a few gaming modifications to their shopping experiences, rewarding customers for making purchases or completing tasks.
In decades past, customers collected coupons to spend in the Betty Crocker catalog or rushed to McDonald’s for a chance at winning valuable prizes during its annual Monopoly campaign. Gamification offers great potential to increase customer engagement and revenue generation, particularly for companies that design a seamless experience tailored to their customers’ expectations.
Types of Gamification
Gamification takes a variety of forms, but most options will help the customer to achieve a reward while they perform a routine shopping task. Common gamification approaches include:
- Contests and Challenges: Customers meet requirements to earn rewards or win prizes, such as buying certain items or sharing posts on social media. The challenge or contest usually sets a deadline or other limits to the experience, so that customers feel a bit of pressure to complete their progress before they lose the opportunity.
- Loyalty Programs: Customers earn rewards by focusing their purchases of an item or service to one particular company. By accumulating points, miles, or other measurables, customers can get free food and drink, gift cards, hotel rooms, flights and more.
- Augmented Reality: Customers can use their smartphones or other devices to imagine the retailer’s products in their lives. These apps allow customers to see how a pair of glasses might look on them, or the appearance of a piece of furniture in their living room.
- Interactive Kiosks: Customers use a kiosk to learn more about a product or complete a purchase without having to engage with sales staff. Retail kiosks can make it easier for customers to discover new products or see how to incorporate them into their daily routines.
Many companies rely on one or more of these approaches to increase customer engagement and loyalty.
Benefits of Gamification in Retail
Gamification offers plenty of benefits for the consumer, but it also creates a valuable exchange for retailers, as well. Companies that implement a well-researched, documented system can reap rewards of higher engagement, better shopping experiences, finer data collection, and improved customer loyalty.
Encourage Engagement
Customers tend to prefer shopping experiences that feel fun more than routine. By encouraging engagement with the company and its products and services, customers feel like they have more of an investment in the experience than merely spending money.
Improve the Shopping Experience
Giving customers a valuable, rewarding experience increases the likelihood of positive reviews and brand loyalty. Customers can use the gamification sequences to improve product understanding and identification or save money on purchases they typically make.
Refine Data Collection
Retailers often use loyalty programs as a way to track their customers’ shopping preferences and gauge demand. Adding other forms of gamification could provide retailers with more useful information, such as the number of customers who consider a product but do not buy it.
Increase Customer Loyalty
Because customers have to interact with the company directly to earn rewards, complete challenges, or win prizes, they spend more time with the company’s products and services. Over time, using one company’s line more than another can lead the customer to prefer that business, especially if they feel like they get a better experience or value from that loyalty.
Building long-term customer loyalty requires businesses to get into the heads of their shoppers. For many people, shopping can be a dreadful task that they must get past, but gamification can help. Consumers use games as a way to break up the monotony of the day, which might include a positive shopping experience.
By considering various types of gamification and their benefits, and the best technologies to incorporate, retailers can add these elements to their processes and transform experiences. The ultimate result helps customers to feel like they are getting a better value by spending money as they normally would.
