Best Gamification Techniques in SaaS + Examples

Best gamification techniques in saas + examples

SaaS products are a must-have in today’s digital age. Many SaaS software items aim to improve productivity and streamline processes in the workplace. Whether it’s a CRM platform for your sales team or a project management tool everyone uses daily, this software is a necessity that uses gamification to improve user engagement.

Gamification helps businesses engage employees, users, and customers with the tools they use and tasks they have on their to-do lists. With the help of game mechanics, businesses can ensure users are fully immersed in the experience. 

You may be wondering: Why is gamifying the experience so essential for SaaS software? Studies suggest that game mechanics in the workplace can increase employee engagement by 60%. With the help of gamification, this software can keep your team engaged throughout the workday and motivate them to do more. 

Let’s take a closer look at enterprise gamification SaaS techniques commonly used by big-name SaaS companies. With this insight, you can find new ways to engage with your team and customers in a new and innovative way. 

How gamification techniques work in SaaS

Gamification is the process of adding gaming elements to a non-game process. With gamification techniques, you can motivate employees and improve the overall user experience for your team members and customers.  

Gamification is widely used in SaaS to improve the usability of SaaS products, enhance user engagement, and ensure product adoption in the workplace. The SaaS products you use daily are there to keep you organized and improve productivity. If active users feel entertained and engaged with the SaaS product, it’s more likely to become an integral part of their everyday lives – which is a win-win situation for everyone.

Gamifying the User Experience

Studies suggest that websites with interactive content see conversion rates that are nearly six times higher than other websites. The interactive components keep individuals engaged and improve the overall user experience.

Why is that? Let’s break it down. 

You clock in to start your work day. You look through your email, plan your day, and start writing down tasks you want to complete. While you work through your to-do list, at some point, your motivation will decrease. 

What if the stakes were raised? What if every day was a competition, or you knew in the back of your mind that you were working towards something bigger?

Gamification aims to invite fun, interactive game mechanics, into your workday. These gamification techniques keep your team engaged from 9 to 5 and push them to accomplish a shared goal. When gamification is integrated into the SaaS products you use daily, you can feel confident they are getting the most out of the experience.

Different types of Gamification Techniques 

When creating a SaaS product, businesses implement different game mechanics to improve product success and keep users engaged. With these game elements, they can enhance the experience and turn their product into an interactive experience that thrives on user engagement. 

Here are a few common gamification techniques:

• Leaderboards 
• Progress Bars 
• Rewards, Incentives, and Recognition
• Interactive Learning 
• Visualization

Let’s take a closer look at how five successful SaaS companies use these techniques for their platform. 

Hubspot: Rewards and Recognition

Hubspot offers a comprehensive list of certification programs for all users called Hubspot Academy. Certification programs allow employees to learn valuable skills for email marketing, software, content marketing, and more. Your team can grow their professional knowledge and skill set with these certifications.

Hubspot uses badges to encourage individuals to complete their certification programs. For every course they complete and quiz they pass, they’ll receive a badge and certifications. The badges are social proof of their accomplishment that can be shared on social media, in Slack channels, and with their higher-up managers. 

By incorporating gamification into the certification program, Hubspot has found a way to improve the usability of its product, enhance user engagement, and provide each business with a suite of hands-on training courses at its disposal. Every time someone shares a badge on LinkedIn, they also receive authentic brand exposure.

Badges are an excellent gamification technique that any business can implement in their workplace. Every time someone on your team meets their quota completes the in-house training courses, or goes above and beyond with their sales activities for the day; you can reward them with a badge. Points, Badges, and incentives make the learning process more fun for new hires and keep them entertained in the onboarding process. 

Spinify: Inspiring Better Performance and Positive Culture

Spinify is Sales Gamification software designed to improve performance and workplace culture. Using a combination of Leaderboards, Recognition, and Rewards, Spinify’s gamification platform boosts data and performance visibility and motivates employees to hit their targets faster than ever.

Perfect for SaaS, Spinify’s competitions and corresponding leaderboards allow players to focus on their progress to the target and keep the highest and lowest performers in view. This approach induces a sense of urgency to the target while also promoting healthy, friendly competition between teammates. 

Moreover, automated achievement celebrations and badges give the team something to strive for! For example, when a new deal is won, the responsible player will be announced to the whole team. This increased public acknowledgment of milestones and achievements makes employees feel appreciated and recognized for their hard work.

Spinify keeps your team focused on achieving its KPIs and goals, turning even the most mundane tasks into an enjoyable, competitive adventure. Coupled with their world-class coaching features and comprehensive performance analytics, it’s never been easier or more enjoyable to better staff performance and hit every target!

LinkedIn Premium Membership: Visualizing Progress

LinkedIn is a popular social media platform for working professionals. It also has a suite of paid features for recruiters and sales teams. The platform utilizes gamification techniques to keep individuals on track for their goals and ensure they get the most out of their paid service.

The premium membership uses award badges, progress bars, and other curated content to enhance user engagement. Every time a premium member logs into LinkedIn, they’ll see how many Inmail credits they have, gain access to interactive learning content, and visualize their success.

The platform also uses progress bars and other gamification techniques to encourage users to complete their profiles. The progress bar shows how close you are to achieving all-star profile status. 

Linkedin’s gamification technique is visualization. If individuals can visualize their success, they are more likely to go the extra mile. If you didn’t see the progress bar at the top of the profile, you’d feel less inclined to finish creating your profile. 

With visualization, your business can keep your team on track to meet its goals. When you meet with them during coaching sessions or help them build a roadmap to meet their long-term goals, you can help them see a clear path toward success with the same visualization techniques. 

Salesforce: Improving the User Onboarding Experience

Salesforce is a Customer Relationship Management platform businesses use to keep track of prospects, sales activities, deals, and all other sale-related information. The platform utilizes several game mechanics like rewards, leaderboards, badges, and intuitive learning. 

They created a user journey called Trailhead so that users can understand the ins and outs of the platform in a streamlined process. The platform rewarded users when they completed the Salesforce training. 

Salesforce has turned the onboarding process into a fun and interactive experience, so users are more likely to retain the information from the onboarding and use it in the workplace. 

With Trailhead, Salesforce turns its software into an easy-to-use software that values the customer experience. Customers who choose Salesforce as their CRM can feel confident about the onboarding process for their employees.  

Freshdesk: Fuels Competition with Leaderboards

Who doesn’t love some fun, good-spirited competition? It’s a great way to motivate employees to do more throughout the workweek and keep them entertained. 

Freshdesk is a customer service software that helps businesses improve customer engagement. This SaaS platform puts your team in the competitive spirit with a real-time leaderboard in the dashboard. Every time your customer service team clocks in to start their day, they’ll see everyone’s score.  

 With leaderboards, your team can visualize its success. They’ll know what they need to do if they want to outrank the rest of their coworkers or come up on top at the end of the week. 

Asana: Celebrating Milestones

Asana is a project management tool that helps keep teams organized with ongoing projects. Their platform is set up to celebrate every big or small accomplishment. Every time someone completes a task, a unicorn will appear on the screen, and the project will disappear from their to-do list. 

Not only will this cute unicorn put a smile on your team’s face, but it will also motivate the users to continue completing all the tasks on their list. Every complete project is like a hit of dopamine. This makes users feel happy about using Asana and increases user loyalty. 

While you may not be able to make a unicorn appear across the screen, you can use similar recognition techniques to remind employees you appreciate their hard work and dedication. 

Implementing the Best Gamification Techniques 

Gamification is an invaluable tool that businesses can utilize to make it more engaging and entertaining. With game design concepts, you can use the same techniques found in a video game and bring them into the workplace, whether with a leaderboard, progress bar, or a point system.

At Spinify, we make it easy to implement enterprise gamification SaaS techniques in the workplace. Our solution will help you coach your team, track their progress, and visualize their success. 
Book a demo today and see how Spinify can help boost your team’s performance.