How to Gain All the Benefits Of Gamification In Business Apps?

Gamification is the process of making something look and feel like a game. People like games, because they are fun. Remember how your mom asked you to eat a bowl of oatmeal and you imagined that it's missile fuel and you are a rocket and will fly to the space after dinner because you hated oatmeal? This is it. In plain English, all you need to do is convert some boring assignments onto a fun game where users don't feel like they are obliged to do that.

The gamification approach can be used in almost any type of application and bring lots of perspectives to it's owner. The gamification elements can be implemented as in customers apps and in in-house solutions for employees only. Both approaches are very productive. If you want to estimate the cost to create an app, decide from the very beginning whether you would add any gamification elements or not because they will influence the functionality and the cost itself.  As the leader of a company, you have to understand how gamification and employee engagement work. If you make your in-house app more like a game, you will significantly influence such aspects.

Gamification in apps for a wide spectrum of users is beneficial as well. Besides, it can also generate a handsome profit for your business.

Motivation. It is probably one of the reasons why developers start using gamification of apps. Common users are captivated with the idea of contests and rewarding. If we look at fitness apps, most of them use the principles of gamification. They allow users to set a desirable goal and encourage them to make small steps every day instead of a usual statistics table which just stores the user's results. When a user sees how many days are left to reach their goal or where his friends are in the program, it motivates them.

Brand awareness. The formula is clear. The better and more interesting your app is, the more people will like it and use it and get acquainted with your brand. This is how the gamification techniques work in business.

Customer engagement. You probably have heard that some airlines offer you to join their club, collect miles and then get a nice discount on the flight tickets. They do it because they want you to be a loyal, regular customer of only their company. It is also a game. All discount cards work the same way. If a customer needs to collect points, miles or whatever, he uses the same shop, airline or dry cleaner.

Recruitment. Some educational apps like programming learning apps offer not only tutorials and training materials but also different tests after a course. If a student did very well on the exam he can be offered a position in a development company.

There are some basic principles of the gamification process, which you have to take into account when planning your app. Missing one of them might lead to failure, so take your time and think about them carefully.

I hope the rules of gamification in mobile apps are clear. Let's talk about the ways and methods we are going to implement gamification into our business app. You can literally use anything that springs to your mind to engage and encourage your customers. Here are some of the hacks to use to make your app very interactive: 

The mobile app gamification approach gives you a huge opportunity to accelerate your business. It doesn't take a long time to develop these features and the cost is rather low. However, there are some pitfalls which can bring the opposite result. Here are the most important don'ts to take into consideration while you develop an app for iPhone or Android:

First. Don't make it compulsory. Give a user the chance to choose whether he needs gamification features or not. If your target audience is middle-aged customers, make it optional, because some users (if not a vast majority of them) would find such an approach juvenile.

Second. Don't concentrate on a competition. The app has to engage and motivate but not to promote a fight. Emphasizing the wrong element can shift the user's attention from your brand and your business to secondary things.

Third. Don't give rewards for just anything. A reward should be a tough thing to achieve. If it's too easy to get, no one values it. And vice versa, too lofty aims persuades users that it's not even worth trying.

Fourth. Don't blur a goal. It has to be very clear. Users need to understand what steps to take to achieve it. If he doesn't, he won't go for it.

The gamification app examples we are going to list have avoided pitfalls and made perfect products that give lots of joy to their customers. They applied gamification methods for a variety of reasons, but they did it properly and it delivered lots of benefits.

Habitica - is an app which helps you perform daily, routine tasks better and faster. The program creates your avatar which improves with every task done. After you have levelled up your avatar, you can fight monsters or even your friends' avatars.

Telfie - is an entertainment social network that engages new users with free tickets and bonuses if they register and share what they are currently reading or watching. Interacting with the system, you train the recommendation engine so it offers you films, books or music according to your preferences.

Zombies, run! - is an amusing fitness app for runners. While running, you are listening to a recording of zombies that are following you. Gamification here captivates the user so he or she doesn't think about miles or how hard running is. With this app, exercising is a fun game.

Gamification is a perfect approach to make your app recognisable. The approach offers you freedom of selection. You can choose the methods that you like and think are the best for your app. The whole app may be in the form of a game or just a few elements which you would add to refresh an old project. Still, don't forget the pitfalls you need to avoid and issues you need to think over in order to develop a really interesting app, not an annoying one. Consider the target audience and what they need. If you do so, you'll improve your productivity and not only that. Companies that use gamification in their apps proved that it really works! To apply gamification into your project contact our managers and well build a perfect strategy for you!

If you want to develop a really nice looking, engaging fitness app then you need to watch our tutorial video about it. Don't forget to subscribe to our channel to keep abreast of the development trends and innovations.