Level up! Learn from our experience using gamification to ramp our team up for the launch of our new software product.
How Vintory Used Gamification to Build and Empower our Team
Ready, Set, Gamify! 🕹
Experienced remote workers – those who have been working remotely prior to COVID-19 – have known the power of using gamification to unite, motivate, inspire and educate teams across space and time, for some time now. But for those of us more recently thrown into the world of back-to-back Zoom calls, gamification might be a new concept.
So…what exactly is gamification, and how do you use it effectively with your remote team, to get the most value out of the experience?
Well, having a remote work-force, we thought we’d give gamification a try. And what better time to test something out like this with our team, than ramping up for the launch of our new software product.
Be bold! Why we decided to gamify
As our team prepared for launch day, amongst other objectives, we needed to:
- Create a sense of solidarity and motivate a remote workforce
- Drive engagement, participation and two-way interaction within the team
- Live out our brand values and put them into action
- Thank the team for their hard work and show heart-felt appreciation
We did some research and discovered that gamification is a powerful way for organizations and companies to:
- Attract more attention from your audience
- Cultivate a shared experience
- Drive user engagement
- Put your brand values into action
- Surprise and delight your team
- Stimulate learning
- Leave a memorable mark
We learned that you can use gamification by incorporating game-design elements into an experience to promote two-way user participation, team interaction and positive engagement.
We were sold…now we just needed to figure out how we were going to do it…
Think playfully! How we gamified the launch of our new platform
Being entirely candid, we had limited time and a defined budget for the internal launch of our new platform. But the truth is, that didn’t stop us from thinking BIG.
Instead of choosing to use an existing game that would not have much relevance to our team, the product or industry we work in, we decided to…make our own!
That’s right…we decided if we were going to embrace this strategy, we were going all in. We wanted to create a game that:
- Is relevant to our market and industry
- Put the purpose of our new platform into “gameplay.” and most importantly,
- Put our team members in the position of the “hero” – leading our partners to achieve success!
Go all in! Can you see what we see?
👀
But back to the whole limited time and budget thing. The fact is we didn’t have the time to build out a custom digital game app or entirely new remote game platform, so we decided to go old school and build out our own “search and find” game 🔍.
Why?
Because the whole point of our new platform is to search for and find new homeowner leads for our partners – it was a perfect fit. Plus, sometimes it’s the simple pleasures that can have the greatest impact ☺️.
The game board is the vacation rental market and the game goal is to find new homeowner leads.
Now it was time to put it into action.
Have fun! Uniting your remote team across time and space 🌎
We brought our team together on Zoom and surprised them with the game. We set the stage with a fun and relevant story and then separated the teams into breakout rooms to play the game. We upped the ante with prizes for those who were the fastest to complete the search and find.
We used gamification to “level” the playing field. The game brought people together to work as a team, despite titles, experience level or work area. The team immersed themselves in the “world of the game” and worked together to accomplish the challenge.
We also used the game as a way to thank the team for all of their hard work up to this point. To do that, we created personalized caricatures of each team member doing something they love and hid them in the game. Talk about surprise and delight! We then sent each team member their caricature to keep!
THE RESULTS! What gamification delivered and taught us
The Vintory Team Gave the Experience a 4.7 Star Review!
"A fun team building activity that was 100% customized to the team, which made it feel like the time and energy was put in to celebrate the team."
WINS
Our team was:
✅ surprised…and delighted
✅ united
✅ focused on the purpose of the game and our new software – to find new homeowner leads
✅ appreciated on a personal level
✅ left talking about a shared and memorable experience
✅ living out Vintory’s core values
"Everyone loved spotting themselves. I think people were hesitant before they saw it - thinking about work that they needed to do, but I noticed an immediate personality change. It covered quality time with the group, gift giving... I truly think it was out of the park."
CHALLENGES
- Technical testing – everyone has a different computer, browser and internet connection. We created multiple ways to access the game to off-set this and conducted many tests.
- Challenge and Skill – it was very difficult to create the right level of challenge while keeping participants interested, rewarded and having fun, without feeling like it’s child’s play. We did multiple tests and changed the strategy based on feedback to hit the right mark. Ultimately the team had a few minor suggestions to tweak the game after playing it, but 100% agreed the game was challenging, fun and the right level of difficulty.
- Time investment – this wasn’t a simple throw a few team pictures together and call it a celebration event. It took careful time and planning to design the game, make it personal and execute on a quality experience.
MISSES
- None! No really…we didn’t find any.
Level up! Our takeaways
Would we do it again?
YES!
While creating this game did require hyper personalization and expert design skills, it was a cost-effective way to deliver HUGE value to our team. There are many ways to incorporate game-like elements into training, launches, team meetings, etc…and in our case the results were worth the effort.
Have you ever used gamification with your team? What do you think about the value of this strategy? I’d love to know – send me a comment or DM or email me at [email protected].
Author: Brooke Pfautz
Brooke is the CEO and Founder of Vintory and is well known in the Vacation Rental industry as the authority when it comes to growing Vacation Rental inventory. You'll find Brooke at his home office, on the latest Vacation Rental webinar or podcast, or at industry events across the States.
