'Net Features : gamification

Badgeville Launches Salesforce Toolkit

Allison Howen — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 18:25:00 GMT

If you need to find a way to get your customers or employees to better engage with your Force.com applications, look no further than Badgeville.

The popular gamification and behavior management platform has launched a toolkit for the Salesforce platform, which enables companies to build more engaging experiences for their apps built on the Force.com platform. The toolkit allows businesses to layer Badgeville’s game, reputation and social mechanics across their cloud applications in order to improve loyalty, enhance employee productivity and maximize return on investment from their Force.com apps.

In fact, Badgeville claims that companies including Docusign, Autodesk, Engine Yard and Phoenix Idea Labs have already implemented its Behavior Platform on top of their Salesforce applications, which has resulted in increased customer engagement by 50 percent or more. Additionally, Badgeville customer Marketo layered the gamification company’s engagement mechanics across its customer community, which increased its active users by more than 51 percent and user engagement by 67 percent. This means that Marketo’s customers are not only more engaged, but are also learning more about Marketo products, which can be very influential and lead to future revenue opportunities for the company.

Twitter Gamification with Bunchball Nitro Connectors

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 16:05:00 GMT

Gamification is a digital trend that captured my attention since it first began to emerge. Why? Well, I think people need motivation – but motivation doesn’t always have to come in the form of money. Sometimes it’s enough to be about our ego alone.

Bunchball is one of those gamification providers that seems to have everything figured out – as if you couldn’t tell from our coverage (seen below). But the gamification technology provider apparently has no plan to stop bringing gamification to the digital business masses in every way possible.

The company has announced plans to release a connector to Twitter for its Nitro gamification engine and its Integrated Nitro solutions.

Bunchball’s Nitro Connectors enable enterprises to connect gamification programs to enterprise applications and social networking tools. With Nitro Connector for Twitter, Bunchball customers will have at their disposal a rather powerful way to motivate site vistiors, consumers and employees to post tweets that support brands and campaigns. Companies can define and track phrases and hashtags that relate to their products, services or indstures and detect when users include them in tweets – rewarding users for their activity.

"Bunchball's Nitro Connector for Twitter is a great example of the value that our Nitro Connectors bring to customers. You can easily and quickly extend your gamification initiatives to include tweets containing the hashtags or phrases you care about most, at the moment that you care about them. With Nitro Connector for Twitter, we're helping customers drive the behaviors that drive their business."

More from Website Magazine on Bunchball:

- Making Gamification a Reality

- Bunchball Gamification Bounces into Salesforce

Bunchball Gamification Bounces into Salesforce

Michael Garrity — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 18:05:00 GMT

Salesforce is one of the biggest cloud computing service providers on the Web, offering everything from customer relationship management (CRM) to help desk software for businesses of all shapes and sizes. And now, through an exclusive partnership with Bunchball, the company is able to add gamification functionality to its Salesforce Service Cloud solution.

The product will be a purpose-built application using Bunchball’s famous Nitro platform, cleverly known as Nitro for Salesforce, which will extend the company’s game mechanics and motivational techniques to sales and service organizations and making it the only fully integrated gamification solution offered by Salesforce.

Nitro for Salesforce uses an array of motivational techniques to engage customers, improve collaboration with service agents and make their work smarter and faster. These techniques include goal-setting, real-time feedback, competition, virtual rewards and the ability to level up.

Organizations using this platform will be able to set their service teams on priorities and goals that present targeted missions and challenges that can be used to incite them to increase productivity. In other words, sales and service managers can use Nitro for Salesforce to motivate employees by offering them rewards for key productivity milestones, improving service quality, taking training courses or whatever other important accomplishments they make.

This new gamification platform will also integrate with the Salesforce Chatter solution, as well as the Salesforce Chatter Communities for Service, allowing managers to create missions and rewards that can motivate their agents to respond to complaints or queries from social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Through the Salesforce Service Cloud console, managers and employees will be able to see their current point tallies, figure out how many more points they will need to reach a milestone and view the rewards that they’re currently attempting to earn; all of these game mechanics and status displays will minimize automatically so that time-pressed agents will be able to stay focused on their current tasks.

However, Nitro for Salesforce isn’t the only Bunchball Nitro-integrated solution through Salesforce; in fact, the software company is unveiling a whole line of Integrated Nitro Solutions that enable companies to apply game mechanics to their services out of the box.

Salesforce Gamification with Badgeville

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 21:08:00 GMT

The Web has gone gamification crazy – and that’s a good thing. When people are motivated to compete and excel in their jobs – that’s exactly what they do (to the benefit and greater good of the enterprise).

While gamification itself is a trend covered across the Web, and of course within Website Magazine (see “Game Play: Where Science & Branding Merge” from Website Magazine’s November 2012 edition), digital workers are only now beginning down the long road of integrating game mechanics into the applications they use on a daily basis. One of the first types of those integration's of course will be into the CRM platforms – and some providers have already begun.

Last month, behavioral gamification platform Badgeville, launched on the SalesForce AppExchange. The module or application essentially brings a gamification layer to a SalesForce Cloud deployment. Users are able to earn points for behaviors including creating or responding to a lead or converting a lead to an opportunity and closing a deal - typical busienss gamification stuff. There are different achievement thresholds which can be set by an administrator, which can reward users for achieving key milestones such as converting a specific number of leads into qualified opportunities.

“We are proud to deliver a native gamification layer for the world’s most widely-used sales application, enabling companies across the globe to drive the most valuable sales behavior” said Kris Duggan, CEO, Badgeville. “Badgeville for Salesforce was designed to reinforce the right sales behaviors that lead to the right outcomes time and again and increase collaborative effort and success among sales teams.”

Freshdesk Gamifies the Help Desk

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 22:15:00 GMT

Gamification is certainly the trend-du-jour but with all its promise, it’s still hard for many Web workers to imagine just how it can be best utilized.

Cloud-based customer support solution Freshdesk just rolled out a new gamified version of its platform dubbed Freshdesk Arcade. The aim? Turning the often tedious role of customer support into a “collaborative game for every help desk agent.”

Support personnel are awarded “fresh points” for achievements including fast ticket resolution, helping resolve issues in the first call, and of course high customer satisfaction ratings. They can also lose points when negative reviews are received or when a customer or service-level agreement is violated.

And what’s a gamified website or Web service without keeping score? As these support personnel “level up” they improve their position (and earn achievements and “trophies” including Sharpshooter, Speed Racer and Customer Wow Champ) on the internal leaderboard – a perfect virtual measuring stick for those most competitive on your staff.

“At Freshdesk, we obsessively focus on agent productivity, giving every support agent more ways to win the love of customers,” says Girish Mathrubootham, Freshdesk CEO. “With Freshdesk Arcade, we are ultimately giving companies on Freshdesk the ability to turn customer support into a fun game for everyone—the business, agents and the end customers.”

Making Gamification a Reality

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 20:00:00 GMT

The gamification trend, which brings game mechanics into the real world, took another big step forward recently as Bunchball unveiled two new product lines (Spark and Fuse) that will bring plug-and-play gamification and integration into over eighty enterprise applications.

Sparks are essentially gamification apps which provide everything that is needed to set up a gamificaiton program, with deployment targets including enterprise applications, websites, and mobile devices. The "Sparks" include opportunities for motiviating users to create and share content, loyalty programs, rewards for channel partners, support in dirinv purchases, motivating collaboration and discussion and more.

Bunchball's other new product Fuse acts as the connector, enabling Bunchball customers to connect their gamification programs to more than 80 enterprise applications, including ADP, Box, NetSuite, Oracle PeopleSoft, SAP, Sharepoint, SugarCRM, Taleo, Workday, and more.

"After years of building gamification products and numerous customer deployments, we know it has immense value and can prove ROI across multiple industries. Our Spark Solutions take everything we've learned about gamification and package it into effective, turnkey applications for site owners who need to address a business issue with a quick and easy solution that shows immediate value."

Add Coupons and Offers Directly to Consumer Payment Cards

Michael Garrity — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 02:00:00 GMT

Gamification and digital coupon company Fanplayr has been on a partnership acquisition binge as of late. It has already signed off on joint ventures with eBay’s X.Commerce platform, Shopify, ifeelgoods, MailChimp and Constant Contact, and now it has added CardSpring to the list.

CardSpring, for the unfamiliar, is a payment platform that helps developers add both Web and mobile applications (including coupons, loyalty programs and digital receipts) to credit and debit cards.

Adding the CardSpring API to the First Data OfferWise solution with Fanplayr’s Gamified “Smart & Targeted” Coupons and Offers platform means that merchants can add Fanplayr coupons straight to a consumer’s payment card. This allows the shopper to turn around and redeem it in real time at the point-of-sale.

The result is a simplified coupon collection and redemption process for both the merchant and consumer, and another step toward improving the digital reward experience for all parties.

With this latest pairing, Fanplayr continues to expand upon its ability to help merchants and retailers reach, influence and convert online shoppers.

Turning CRM into a Game

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 30 May 2012 15:45:00 GMT

Gamification has captured the attention of digital marketers and developers, and slowly the Web community at large is beginning to see software solutions built from the ground up with that functionality at its core.

One such new offering is Zurmo, an open-source CRM project that embraces game mechanics in some relatively creative ways with the beta release 0.6.6 of its application.

Zurmo offers points and badges for actions performed in the system, levels and categories, challenges and bonus points; and what gamified system would be complete without a leaderboard?

“One of our key goals is making CRM fun,” states Zurmo co-founder and community manager Ray Stoeckicht. “Our team of Software Engineers has a great deal of respect for the highly disciplined Test Driven Development methodology we’ve applied to every line of code. But at the same time, we’re focusing on building elements that will encourage, rather than force usage. The lack of intrinsic motivation to use CRM systems is a major failure in our industry that we intend to fix.”

The open-source CRM also features much of the functionality you would come to expect including contact and activity management, deal tracking, security, personalization, integrations, internationalization and it’s even mobile and tablet ready.

Social Gamification Gains Momentum in the Retail Channel

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:20:00 GMT

eCommerce coupon and “offer marketing” platform Fanplayer has brought its gamification technology to Magento, the first such partner in Ebay’s X.Commerce ecosystem.

Magento merchants are now able to add the Fanplayr widget to their stores to engage consumers socially with games that provide multi-variable coupons and offers. There are currently three Fanplayr games – Spinner (see short demo video below), Mystery Game, and Card Flip.

The Fanplayr widgets can be deployed pretty much anywhere – not just a Magento shopping cart – including Facebook brand pages, email, mobile websites, even within advertising. The extension offers real-time performance insights into the coupons/offers being used by merchants and also provides social graph (and Facebook Connect) integration.

"Magento's integration partnership with Fanplayr enables merchants to better engage and convert social consumers to sales using new and traditional marketing channels," said Fanplayr CEO Simon Yencken. "We're excited to be a lead innovator for the Magento and X.commerce platforms and are focused on building new and innovative commerce experiences that drive the highest engagement, loyalty and sales for merchants."

BigDoor Offers New Gamified Rewards Program

Michael Garrity — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 16:30:00 GMT

Gamification is currently one of the hottest online marketing trends because it has proved to be a highly effective method for engaging website visitors.

Leading gamification platform provider BigDoor has unveiled a new Gamified Rewards Program with which publishers of varying sizes can offer their users an array of incentives for their continued participation. Potential prizes include exclusive content, unlocked powers, virtual gifts, community status and a variety of tangible items, all designed to foster deeper engagement and reward user loyalty.

Implementing gamification in general, as well as one of these specific new rewards programs, onto a site is a simple and affordable process. BigDoor customers can choose from one of three options based on the amount of traffic their websites receive: Lite (free), Plus and Premium.

BigDoor also offers deep analytics and performance measurements that can be studied through a simple dashboard focusing on key performance indicators (KPIs) that track the overall health of each rewards program.

To learn more about the emerging gamification space and see some additional vendors, click here.

Improve Engagement and Conversions By Playing Games

Michael Garrity — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 22:05:00 GMT

Have you heard of Fanplayr? If not, keep reading, because this new marketing solution could really help improve your social media strategy, particularly in increasing user engagement and conversions. Or, at the very least, it'll pique your interest in the rapidly growing field of gamification.

Fanplayr is a social game marketing tool for converting targeted consumers to sales by combining social coupons and gamification marketing. It works by helping users create a special coupon based on its "type," value and amount and then promote them among their various Web properties. However, Fanplayr provides more than just easy coupon creation; it also gives the user an easy way to add gamification options to their offers, which can increase user engagement with the coupons and drive conversions.

Marketers can include the social game coupons and offers to their emails, Web pages, e-commerce sites, mobile properties and, of course, social pages to improve their reach, influence social consumers and turn them into sales. Best of all, the solution is self-service, meaning it requires no IT to implement and making it perfect for everyone from agency and direct marketers to Internet retailers to small and medium-sized businesses.

This is a hot time to start implementing such a service, as eMarketer has reported that nearly 92.5 million Internet users are likely to use online coupons throughout the next year.

Now, Fanplayr has entered into a “strategic integration partnership” with e-commerce solution provider Shopify to help online marketers jump on the gamification bandwagon.

Fanplayr will now be available to Shopify’s 20,000 e-commerce merchants via the company’s App Store. When retailers download the application, they’ll be able to create social coupons and/or marketing games, and then promote their creations across Facebook and Twitter pages, e-commerce pages, emails and even Facebook Ads.

Game On: Marketing with Gamification

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 22:30:00 GMT

Mobile marketing solutions provider Upstream released research which reveals that marketers believe in the power of “gamification” and that consumers are more likely to respond to game-based marketing mechanics – but only 27 percent have used the tactics in their campaigns.

So, what is gamification? The term relates to the use of game design techniques/mechanics to solve problems and engage audiences. Examples include achievement badges, leader boards, progress bars, virtual currency, etc. Gamification to date has related primarily to consumer oriented web and mobile sites.

Upstream found that two thirds of the marketers questioned did not fully comprehend the term gamification, but after being briefed, 64 percent stated they felt game mechanics would improve relationships with customers.

As to what rewards will generate the highest response, the verdict seems to still be out. 34 percent said free products would be most engaging, followed by cash (25 percent), a high value single prize (24 percent) and points (11 percent).

Guy Krief, Senior Vice President of Innovation, Upstream, who gave the seminar ‘Gamification and Mobile: Press Start’ at Adtech 2011 in London said:

“With customers being bombarded with promotional messages from brands on a daily basis, we need to help marketers make intelligent use of real-time gamification – moving it from the latest buzz word to the reality of influencing consumer behaviour. Gamification can make the key difference to any marketing campaign, making it more interactive, engaging and exciting for the consumer and more profitable for the brand.”