Feminine gamification viewpoint: consistent experiences
Capturing the attention for loyalty especially ladies also requires a consistency in service and reliability. For 5 years i have been the happy owner of a Macbook, one of those beautiful white vintage models. I did what I could to keep it working even with it’s age and it never caused too much hassle apart from slowing down a lot in recent times because file sizes etc have increased so much. After an achieved goal I decided to upgrade to a younger version with the current highest specifications and I have to say it has been the experience from hell.
First of all the store mentioned that if I bought as a business user from a different number, yet still in the Apple family I would save money in the long run. I was delighted and immediately rang that number. I would indeed save money, but finding a delivery time where I could actually pick it up was a challenge and delayed the sale for 3 months. I offered to send a courier myself to pick it up in Cork and send it to where I was. What I really wanted was to collect it in an Apple Store and have immediate help setting up, but no when you are a business customer you have to organise either delivery to an office or collect it in a dingy little shop somewhere. Because I work from mainly shared workspaces, this was the first hurdle. So the delight had by the time I got the new Macbook resulted into minor relief and thanks to the size of the packaging also massively unpractical to transport, so immediate logistical problem too.
Setting the whole thing up was a major nightmare, I spent over the course of 4 days nearly 10 hours online or on the phone to various support places from Apple to get the Macbook to Microsoft to get office working. (Comparing like for like Microsoft support for business users only works during office hours and is mighty incompetent, Apple people you can still call during the weekend when you actually have peaceful time to fix things and most of them have been courteous and helpful.) With all the time wasted, I deeply regretted upgrading and spent a lot of time staring at a closed brand-new computer, whilst working on my old reliable vintage model. When it eventually got going, it is a lot faster and finally does what I need it to do, I have to say any positive vibe had eroded.
After 3 weeks of use and a few travels to different parts of the world, a restart this morning nearly resulted in a full re-set of the computer, because it didn’t recognise the password I had been using for a few weeks now. The first smart-ass support agent basically told me I should have changed my password a long time ago (ahem computer is 3 weeks old) and then after 20 minutes also hung up on me for no apparent reason. The second support guy was more helpful and only conclude a full reset, for which I didn’t have time. So writing to you from the old reliable. I have to say the company that used to be very delightful, has taken an absolute nosedive in it’s latest experience.
When we create experiences in gamification the customer typically will grant you loyalty when you are consistent in your creation of the feelings they have grown used to feeling whilst dealing with you. In my case I was always happy and delighted, but recent times, have rocked my confidence in the product and the service has had it’s seriously inefficient moments.
Think through each touchpoint of the gamified experience you are building and look where can you create that feeling you want to customer to feel and how can you bring it out.
