Badgeville explains: gamification is not a game

Credit: Ted and Jen via Flickr

See if you recognize this scene: A top exec or IT manager latches on to the latest enterprise software trend – maybe it's moving the company's HR system to the cloud, or installing an enterprise social network to improve collaboration. Vendors are vetted. A decision is made. Consultants are hired to help out with the installation. The deployment goes live.

Three months later, nobody's using it.

This happens all too often, according to Badgeville field sales chief Kevin Akeroyd, particularly with social software such as Yammer, Jive, and Tibbr.

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"Utilization on that stuff is only 12%," he says, citing research from Forrester. "It's the same thing on customer-facing communities like Lithium and Get Satisfaction. Utilization rates of customer-facing social are as poor as enterprise social."

Badgeville's solution is to use game mechanics to increase engagement. It offers a platform where employees or customers can earn online badges and social recognition for desired behaviors – like sharing expertise on an internal social network, or resolving a customer complaint quickly.

Does this actually work?

Customers and consultants are certainly jumping aboard. The company is just over two years old, but already has more than 100 employees, 230 customers, and is on track to double its annual revenue for the second year running. Today, consulting firm CapGemini announced it has teamed up with Badgeville to deliver gamification to customers as part of its larger Digital Transformation practice.

But there are also plenty of skeptics. A recent Gartner report predicted that 80% of gamification efforts will fail, mainly because of poor design.

"We emphatically agree," says Akeroyd. "Gamification will fail if it's done poorly."

 Akeroyd offers these tips to make sure a gamification effort succeeds.