Gamification will give you a J-curve in your business. You might have heard debit and credit companies saying that you will get points on doing this amount of purchase. These points will help you to get free petrol, free airport lounge passes, etc. You will learn about this point-system and gamification. # Gamification Gamification is a process or template through which you bind your customers, employees, or any other stakeholder in a gamified format so that the customers keep on buying from you repeatedly because he/she wants to reach from one level to the next level of the game (from level 1 to 2, level 2 to 3, etc.). So, you need to divide your business in different levels. For example: If you have a grocery store, your customers must be spending different amounts of money in your store. Some of them make a purchase of Rs. 500, some of Rs. 5000, and others of Rs. 10,000. You need to make different levels for different types of customers. If a customer buys some products of Rs. 5,000, then give him some points. Tell him that on his next visit, if he makes a purchase of more than Rs. 5,000, then he can redeem these points on a particular product. This will guarantee that the customer will do a purchase of more than Rs. 5000 next time. So, it will help you in predicting your revenue, i.e. how much will be your revenue in the next 6 months or 12 months. Various big companies like Big Bazaar have gamified their all purchases and this is the reason you go them again and again because you have taken the Big Bazaar card and as much shopping you do as much points you will get and you will get more advantage. The same thing is done by Patanjali. Every customer wants an advantage whether this advantage is of Rs. 1, 5, or 100. On a small product, Rs. 5 advantage is also a big advantage. On a big product, Rs. 5,000-7,000 benefit is a big advantage. On purchasing a car, if you get a benefit of Rs. 50,000-60,000, you will purchase it. This is called gamification. # How to do gamification in your business? For implementing gamification in your business, use the following 5-step framework: ### 1. Points or badges for actions or purchases Whenever you are asking your customer to take an action or make a purchase, give them badges or points. As you keep on giving points or badges, the customer keeps coming to you again and again. Create a ranking system for customers on a scale of 1-10. The customer who is leading on the scale will get more discounts. If you do so, the customer will come again and again to check their luck and get more benefits. You can even give scratch card coupons to customers. You need to identify how you can give points to your customers in your business. ### 2. Personal or team scorecards Gamification is not only for customers. It is for your other stakeholders like your employees. Every business is employees or people business. Gamification will help you to retain your talented employees. For this, you can give them personal scorecards, incentives after every 3 months. If an employee is growing rapidly and adding value to your business, then you can give him/her ESOPs or making them equity holders. ### 3. Challenges, Competition, or Contests In a Diwali Mela, you find various challenges or competition like throwing ring or hitting a pyramid of mugs with a ball. Even if you are getting only Rs. 100 on winning these challenges or competitions but you play them to win. Everyone wants to win a challenge or competition. Similarly, you can give challenges and competitions to your customers and employees. ### 4. Leader board Make a list of your top 10% or 20% customers or top 50 customers from 1-50. This is called a leader board. You should make a leader board of your customers. As much innovative your leader board is, as many customers will be connected with you. ### 5. Rewards and Incentives Reaching on the top of the leader board is not important but what will the customer get after reaching the top of the leader board is important. Customers want to know the rewards or incentives he/she will get on reaching the top of leader board like whether he/she is going to win a car, a trip, a silver coin, or gold. So, you should clearly mention the reward. Let us take two examples to understand this. ##### 1. Times Internet Whenever you visit any website of Times Group like the Economic Times website, “Log in to Get Times Point” is written either at the top or the bottom of the website. So, once a customer login their website, he/she will get some points. When the customer keeps visiting their websites, clicking and reading their articles, the points will keep adding to their accounts and the customer keeps moving up on their leader board. When the customer become the superuser of the website, then he/she will get discounts to read their paid articles or publications. This is because as much as the customer visits the website, the company’s website traffic increases and they will earn more from advertisements. ##### 2. Nike Plus Nike Plus is a community made by Nike. You need to download Nike Plus App on your mobile and when you go for running or jogging after wearing your Nike shoes. This App will provide complete data of how many kilometers you ran or jogged in how much time and how many calories you burn. After collecting the data, it makes a leader board of customers all around the world showing their running or jogging details. Suppose you run 10 kilometers in 8 minutes while a person in the US has completed 10 Kms in 9 minutes. This will create a feeling of competition and you keep competing with the person. In this way, Nike has implemented gamification in Nike Plus App. So, you can also try to implement gamification in your business.