Most gamified loyalty programs today give customers a view of the rewards they could earn upon performing an action, hoping it drives motivation. But what it also does is remove the element of surprise.
This week, we wanted to present an alternative, psychology-backed gamification approach and give you a few nifty tricks to use Capillary’s gamification elements in your loyalty program.
We read the book–’A Brief History of Human Intelligence’ after hearing about it on the Loyalty Out Loud episode with Kevin Ertell. The book states that there ought to be a time difference between the behavior and the reward for the brain’s reward prediction algorithm to run. This builds up the motivation for the reward, yes. But it also helps the brain test its prediction algorithm. Meaning, the brain is going to recommend performing other sorts of behaviors that could earn a reward.
And that’s an interesting principle. Because now you get to play with 3 variables to provide a surprise element in your loyalty program:
1. The time to earn a reward
2. The range of preferred behaviors that will earn a reward
3. The type of reward earned
Airlines programs do this frequently. They not only give their loyal customers air miles on every booking but occasionally, they’ll also give customers an upgrade to First Class that they can’t predict. This reinforces the customer’s reason to travel with the airline.
How you can apply this to your loyalty program:
Don’t tell a customer that they’d have to perform 3 actions to earn a reward like 500 points to build their motivation through Capillary Milestones.
Instead, share a milestone tracker with your customers to show them they’ll receive a reward in 15 days. Give them clues to performing your preferred purchase behaviors and offer them surprise rewards when they do, to delight them.
Not sure how to implement this in your loyalty program or need more tips? Our CS team can help. Reply to this email with your concerns and we’ll get back to you, surprisingly quick 😉
Helping create delightful customer experiences,
Team Capillary
