How can trainers and coaches make their e-learning more successful with gamification? Alexandra Nagy from Kunde 21 virtually climbed a mountain with participants in her online course on customer experience. In the article, you will learn how she playfully led her course participants to success with "Reach The Top".

Many have different ideas about gamification: many directly think of virtual reality and similar concepts. However, gamification essentially means one thing – increasing motivation and thus the learning progress of course participants through the fun factor. You don’t need high-tech devices for that! Even simple playful elements make your course more exciting and interactive. This way, your gamification course appeals to a wide customer segment and motivates participants to successfully complete the online course!

Customer Orientation in the 21st Century

The company Kunde 21 advises businesses in Austria – as the name suggests, with a strong customer orientation. Since 2019, Kunde 21 has been working with blink.it to offer its clients maximum learning transfer. The term customer experience (CX) describes the path companies take to align themselves with the needs of customers in the 21st century.

Managing Director Alexandra Nagy told us more about the Customer Experience (CX) Challenge in an interview. This took place over the entire past year and followed the motto "Climbing the CX Mountain Together". Alexandra Nagy combined storytelling and gamification in her blink.it course. Thus, she "traveled" collectively with her course participants on the mountain.

About the Person: Alexandra Nagy is the managing partner of Kunde 21 GmbH and the managing director of the Communications Hub Austria. She has been active in the management industry for over twenty years and has helped build various international brands and companies. Her work specializes in customer experience and customer centricity.

Playfully Climbing the Mountain of Customer Experience

The CX Challenge from Kunde 21 consisted of the following components:

Throughout the entire last year, a new knowledge module (a Blink) on the topic of customer experience was published every month in the online course. The Blinks marked twelve stations on the way to the goal. To reach the goal – the mountain summit – participants had to complete the twelve Blinks. Additionally, a prize was drawn every month to continually stimulate participants’ motivation. This fit into the overall challenge and included, for example, a package with muesli bars and nuts.

Here’s how Alexandra Nagy presents the project in the video:

Alexandra Nagy presents the Customer Experience Challenge from Kunde 21

"We put everything under one motto and carried it through the entire challenge." – Alexandra Nagy

To participate in the prize drawing, course participants had to complete a survey at the end of each of the twelve Blinks. The image behind it: after completing each survey, participants reached the stage goal and came a step closer to the mountain summit.

Chapter Overview of the Customer Experience Challenge on the blink.it platform

Through the CX Challenge, course participants not only learned something but also grew beyond themselves level by level. Additionally, gamification elements ensured that participants developed ambition to see the challenge through to the end.

Alexandra Nagy presents how these gamification elements looked in the following interview:

Interview with Alexandra Nagy: Gamification Using the Example of the “CX Challenge”

We asked Alexandra Nagy the following four questions in the interview:

• Question 1: For which topics is gamification suitable?

• Question 2: What should be considered when implementing gamification?

• Question 3: How can gamification be implemented with blink.it?

• Question 4: What advantages does blink.it offer specifically for gamification courses?

Question 1: For which topics is gamification suitable?

Whether dry or interesting – gamification is suitable for all topics! Especially for content where learning is perceived as laborious. This is because playful elements lighten such topics. This promotes the motivation of course participants, as learning successes become visible through, for example, levels or points gathering. This reduces the likelihood that participants will prematurely drop out of the online course. With gamification, you as a trainer have the opportunity to create courses that contain challenges and tasks. This way, your course participants develop and grow step by step beyond themselves!

Question 2: What should be considered when implementing gamification?

The following four tips from Alexandra Nagy show how to sensibly incorporate gamification into your online courses:

1. Knowledge Level of Your Course Participants

What is the skill level of your participants? Using a quiz or survey, you can find out how much background knowledge already exists. This allows you to find the perfect balance between challenge and learning success!

Info: The flow theory suggests that learners should not be over- or under-challenged during the learning process. When both balance out, learners surpass personal goals and enhance their learning and development curve.

Gamification gives participants the opportunity to continually develop their skills. They learn not just dryly but master challenges and tasks so that they can develop their skills step by step.
Alexandra Nagy

2. Tell a Story

Think of an exciting story and build your course around it! If you choose a topic and align your course content with it, it will become more interesting right away. The story provides your online course with unity and a framework. Your course goal becomes clearly recognizable, and your participants know what is needed to climb the mountain summit. A unique story also generates attention:

By giving them a story to tell, the participants spread the challenge wonderfully.
Alexandra Nagy

3. Transparent Objectives

Clearly formulated objectives show your course participants what they will achieve with your online course. Gamification elements (level thinking, points gathering) support motivation and ambition to develop further and reach the goal.

4. Sustained Motivation

Levels, like in the CX Challenge, show the current learning progress and how participants are getting closer to the course goal. This progress acts as a "positive trigger" for many. Additional prizes also spark motivation and determination among participants to complete the course. Sustained motivation is thus the key to surpassing oneself and reaching the summit of the mountain.

Question 3: How can gamification be implemented with blink.it?

The CX Challenge consisted of a kind of "best-of" content around the topic of customer experience from Kunde 21. This content had to be adapted to the mountain summit story and level thinking. Accordingly, the course content was made more engaging with images and videos relevant to the topic.

Participant Feedback from the CX Challenge

Gamification is often criticized because it is said that the playful elements push content to the background. However, this doesn’t have to be the case! Therefore, it is essential to maintain the balance between playful elements and learning content.

Everything you tell – no matter how funny it is – must be connected to the theory.
Alexandra Nagy

Question 4: What advantages does blink.it offer specifically for gamification courses?

1. Different Media

To make gamification courses particularly immersive, the learning content should be varied and tailored to a specific theme. You want to tell a story! Therefore, use different formats in your course. This way, your participants can better immerse themselves in the story. You support your theme visually, e.g., through cover images of your courses and chapters, images, videos, and audio files in your courses and through links to other websites (e.g., YouTube).

2. Intuitive and Easy Operation

The blink.it learning platform is intuitively applicable not only for course creators but also for course participants. This allows participants to easily immerse themselves in the story of the gamification course without being deterred by complicated applications.

For us, with blink.it, participant support is practically zero. There are never problems.
Alexandra Nagy

3. Reflection at the End of the Blink

The learning effect and personal development should not fall by the wayside, despite gamification. Therefore, the challenge participants answered a survey at the end of each Blink. This helped them reflect on and apply the knowledge they learned. With blink.it, you can choose between quizzes, surveys, and tests and incorporate them at the appropriate points in the chapter. This makes the gamification course even more interactive, and the content doesn't fall short!

Our claim is that we can convey all our content and upload it easily. The blink.it platform is intuitive from our side (as creators) and also for the participants.
Alexandra Nagy

Online courses do not have to be rigid and boring! They offer the opportunity to achieve learning progress with fun. For this, you need a story that you tell in your course and a mountain summit that your participants climb. If you lighten up and visually adapt your content to your story, your course participants will be guaranteed to be more motivated and ambitious to climb that mountain.