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“You cannot bore people into buying your product; you can only interest them into buying it.” - David Ogilvy
Can you, or should you, gamify your customer’s success? Whether you realize it or not, you most likely already are. At its core, gamification is more about driving engagement — whether it is an end user or an employee – than simply competing for points and badges. And Customer Success Managers are key driver of these programs.
Customer Success Management is an emerging field that is tasked with ensuring that clients obtain value from your product quickly. Given this charter, gamification strategies can play an important role in helping Customer Success Managers drive product adoption, involvement in customer programs, and even organizational alignment.
Let’s take a look at each area.
There are basic human drivers that motivate us to do what we do. We either want to feel smart, successful, and socially valued, or we want to gain order or structure to our world. The most successful products are developed with these motivators in mind. As it relates to Customer Success Management, CSMs should strive to understand what a customer really wants out of the product – such as to bring order to their department – and make certain they tap into core motivators in driving adoption.
For example, a customer onboarding program can certainly benefit from gamification strategies. As you map out the ways in which Customer Success Managers drive early adoption, make certain initial messaging is based on the core reason why the product was purchased and triggers initial usage by tapping into this core motivator.
“By logging in and using these key features, you can start bringing order to your department now!”
Once customers have successfully moved out of the adoption phase of the customer lifecycle, it’s time to think about how you can move them up the hierarchy of customer success in driving loyalty — and ultimately loyalty to your brand. Gamification can play a central role in programs that help you confirm business value and sustain customer commitment. The key is to make certain the reason why a customer should participate in a program is obvious.
For example, a customer loyalty or a product advisory program with a successful gamification layer highlights the key reasons a customer should care:
Customer Success Leaders are tasked with managing their department, but driving customer value can involve a lot of cross-departmental rallying. Thus gamification can come into play in order to motivate people to do certain actions. But in order to implement gamification, you have to first understand what really drives team members.
Individuals are primarily motivated by the desire to feel validated and special. That validation comes a number of the key motivators mentioned above, such as wanting to feel socially valued, successful and like their world has structure. When creating your gamification program, make sure that it includes these values.
For example, a gamification program can be extremely useful for accomplishing a variety of tasks including individual goals, team goals, and adoptions of new processes or tools. But you really have to understand your team and respect the culture of your organization. If your Customer Success team thrives on competition, then your gamification plan can be similar to a Sales in ranking and rewarding individual activities:
Individual bonus for renewal rate … higher retention rate gets paid more.
A Customer Success org that’s geared for more of a collaborative environment may be more suited for gamified team goals:
Team bonus if we achieve our overall renewal rate.
Whether it is driving initial adoption of your product, developing programs to increase customer loyalty, or even improving team performance, the gamification strategies discussed in this article can make a big difference in driving the long-term success of your customers. Gamification can help your organization increase the lifetime value of your customers as well as improve the productivity of your teams.
Catherine Blackmore is a thought leader and innovator in the area of Customer Success, with over 20 years of experience helping a diverse list of clients from small businesses to Fortune 100 clients. As Chief Customer Officer, Catherine is responsible for the experience and success of all Bluenose customers. She also owns strategic initiatives around category-awareness for the Customer Success discipline in order to engage and educate the market. Catherine has extensive experience in gamification strategies, having served as VP of Customer Success at Badgeville and Jigsaw. She also holds degrees in Advertising and Psychology from the University of Washington.
Gamification is a big part of creating a thriving community. Want to learn more? Visit salesforce.com or download the free e-book.
