Gamifying Financial Services – What Does It Mean? Why Is It Important?

There is a reason the gaming industry has been booming over the last several years, and gaming operators have been investing millions to launch the best video games. However, gamification has been influential on Gen Z, and companies used it as a platform to communicate with and reach out to people from this generation to make onboarding them much easier and fun.

Today, several aspects of our lives have been gamified, especially in the rise of Web3 and Metaverse, where technologies took gaming and services to another level. In this article, we will discover the gamification of financial services and its importance.

Understanding Gamification

The term “gamification” was developed under the vast influence of gaming on people’s thought processes and definition of what is likeable and not.

Gamifying means designing and developing non-gaming services in a gaming approach. Also, This approach is more appealing to users and drives their interest in using that specific service or platform. 

Also, More sectors are now gamifying their offerings, from marketing to fitness, social media, financial services, education and fundraising.

However, Financial services have recently played a role in the gamification of things, birthing the term GameFi, where users can enjoy extended use cases of their gaming experiences and earn money the more they play.

Advantages of Gamification

Gamification has proven its worth in customer experience and brings more benefits to users, such as:

• Boosting user engagement in financial services offered on the phone or web by using game-like features for a better customer experience.
• Simplifying banking and financial terms by adding amusing elements from the gaming world.
• Increasing customer loyalty through creating products and services that resonate with them and improving the reputation through gamified services.
• Gathering customer feedback and creating services or improving already-established services to suit customers’ expectations.

Elements of Gamification in Financial Services

However, Customers are more likely to choose products and services that are familiar to them, with elements they know of, like gamification, which is an innovative approach to encourage saving and investing using amusing tactics.

Also, Companies use gamification to convert new users to their platforms and to promote their services in an appealing way. There are five elements of gamifying financial services.

Reward System

Incentives and rewards are the best way for companies to introduce a new service or initiate a new campaign. Customers are more likely to follow through or agree when a prize is on the line. The rewards do not need to be costly or too significant, but monetary or non-monetary incentives are more likeable than a theoretical reason for using a certain product/service.

Social Community

Building a social media network and communities for users to participate in and share their opinions is a smart way to gain loyalty and offer new services. Utilising Reddit and Discord is becoming more common for companies to gather customer feedback on an already-existing or potential service before launching. 

Moreover, community members feel their opinions are voiced, and their ideas are valued by participating in different forums and communicating with likely-minded users and, why not, company representatives.

Challenges & Rewards

Some companies produce ongoing challenges to keep their users excited about their products and services. Then, offsetting these challenges by compensating rewards to give the clients a sense of accomplishment; and positivity while using your services. 

Visual Aids

Customers prefer visual content over textual. Therefore, it is important to provide visual aids in the gaming context, like progress bars and accomplishment status; to ensure clients remain motivated and interested in your services. 

Interaction

Quizzes, puzzles and games are the best ways to keep clients engaged and interested in your service. Companies have been using scratch cards and coupons for many years to draw greater attention to new products and services. 

Today, many companies use online communities on Discord and Reddit to launch mini-games; competitions, raffles and quizzes to keep their community members excited. Additionally, companies use these tactics to measure the impressions and reactions to their services; and what needs to be improved to serve their customers better.

Conclusion

Gaming went from the sole purpose of video game entertainment to more real-life use cases in marketing; finance, customer service, fitness and more. Now, more companies are using gamification to appeal to their customers.

The gamification of services has become increasingly important to improve products; and services and the overall business performance and customer satisfaction.