If you’re not thinking of your customers as gamers yet, then you’re missing out on all the fun.
Whether you know it or not, customers are playing a number of games when they enter your business. They may or may not be playing overt games—groaning over another Angry Birds failure, scratching away at a crossword puzzle—but they’re certainly at work in other less obvious game ecosystems. Are they earning AMEX rewards today? How about collecting OpenTable points?
But game mechanics are more than just a way to have fun with your customers—they can also solve real problems.
Customer loyalty is a crucial goal for most small businesses, it’s also one of the most elusive. The more regular customers your business has, the better you’ll do. You don’t need to hear that from an expert. But what you might not know is that with game mechanics, you can create a strong community of regulars fast. There are obviously lots of solutions out there to create loyalty, but when you’re a hammer, all the world’s a nail.
Let’s get to it. Here are three powerful mechanics that you can easily implement in your own business in order to create loyalty: “Status,” the “Level-up” and the “Appointment Dynamic.”
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