Gamification techniques for your financial services clients
Here are three tips for channel companies looking to help financial services and insurance clients adopt gamification as part of their overarching digital business strategies.
By
Mihir Shah
Published: 17 Aug 2017
Gamification seeks to engage participants -- customers or employees, for example -- in an activity they find enjoyable in order to influence behavior.
But gamification is also an approach your financial services clients might pursue as part of an emerging digital strategy. In this Ask the Expert, Mihir Shah, senior director of digital at Synechron, a digital, business consulting and technology services provider based in New York, shares his views on how a channel partner might help its customers adopt gamification techniques.
What should a business partner consider when helping financial services firms and insurers develop a digital strategy related to gamification?
For the game to be successful, your client needs to define the objective for the game with a clear and measurable goal in mind: What does it mean to win the game and how are players measured and ranked against one another? Furthermore, an organization needs to define the game's objective so the game solves a problem for the player. This principle holds true whether the game is delivered via an app, website or some other digital experience.
Here are three tips for advising your financial services and insurance clients on gamification techniques.
Focus the game experience
Data collection based on age group behavior and user statistics can help your client understand what aspects of the game they find compelling.
Once the objective for the game is set, the client will need to understand the overall process -- operations, workflows and technologies among other factors -- that touch the game and create a path for players to get from point A to point B. Market research can help organizations create the right game board and define the focused path toward the game's objectives. Data collection based on age group behavior and user statistics can help your client understand what aspects of the game they find compelling. Those insights can then be integrated into the game, as is the case with popular games such as Candy Crush and Pokémon Go.
Measure the change
After you roll out your first release, your client will need to start an evaluation process to understand whether the goals are being reached. It is crucial to collect whatever data you can about the program, including attendance, drop-off points and trends, and use that data to adjust the gamification techniques and continuously iterate.
Reward incremental progress
Data and iterative changes to the game will also let your clients tap into human psychology and use behavioral elements to reward good behavior. This is where budgets, achievements, competitive leaderboards and more fit into the game. To do this well, you need to understand the social dynamics of the players, and the game data can help to continuously provide that insight.
Next Steps
Learn more about the business value of gamification
Find out how Cato Networks uses gamification to motivate sales reps
Gain insight into the use of gamification in the healthcare market
