Loyalty 3.0: How to Revolutionize Customer and Employee Engagement with Big Data and Gamification 1st Edition

I had a chance to read an advanced copy, and I was taken by the link the author draws between video games and behavioral science, and how companies can use that link to motivate people to participate in something as mundane as an employee portal.Big data plays a huge role here, too, and with news coverage of the NSA making everyone, everywhere familiar with the concept, the timing seems perfect to talk about using big data for purposes other than ferreting out bad guys.Some facts are true eye-openers. The pace of digital data growth is jaw-dropping, and its implications for businesses leave you wondering if and how companies are applying these techniques to you.It's an easy read, and the science on which its concepts are based is put into a useful context that later folds nicely into the case studies you'd expect from a business book.Gamification makes its appearance after the foundational concepts are described, but Paharia, who is a gamification guru, does an admirable job of dialing down the role his seminal company played in the evolution of that industry. Good thing, too. Only Apple can get away with talking about itself incessantly. Paharia knows this and wisely lets the concepts and the case study subjects tell the story for him.The final chapters offer tips for implementing Paharia's concepts. It seems clear that many of these are the result of his experience in gamification, and to his credit, he doesn't settle for weak platitudes or generic "envision, plan, execute, measure" bromides. Paharia views crafting a Loyalty 3.0 campaign as "a design problem" because participants will find themselves inside an experience, almost as if they're inside a story. These are the kind of viewpoints, in addition to practical do's and don'ts, that I was hoping for here."Loyalty 3.0" reminds me a bit of Paco Underhill's terrific "Why We Buy," which also showed how behavioral science can be used to help companies understand and anticipate what people want -- and then create environments that encourage the results those companies want. In a way, that's what this book is about.

Written by the CEO of a technology company that build gamification platforms, on the surface may appear slanted; however, though the author at times promotes his company-most of the time its due to pulling examples and analysis from data the company has compiled. Either case, he does so with taste. His case studies are clear, specific, and provides the reader with ideas of how to translate the case studies in the book into a strategy for his or her business. This is not a technical book. Which is good if your looking to grasp the big idea of gamification, loyalty, and big data, and insights as to what this might mean to your business; but it may disappoint you if your looking for a technical 'how to' book.

The purpose of this review is to encourage you to buy Loyalty 3.0: How to Revolutionize Customer and Employee Engagement with Big Data and Gamification, read it, and put it into action so that you will have more loyal employees, customers, and other stakeholders. Why, because Rajat Paharia has created amazing results for a variety of businesses using the principles inside, and you can too.Why believe me? First, I am a self declared bookaholic who has read thousands of business books since i started my business career in 1975. Loyalty 3.0 is in the top 10 business books I have read.Second, because I have been teaching marketing, first at the Harvard Business School (1985-89 and 1994-97) and then at Stanford in the Department of Management Science and Engineering 1990-Present). My intention is to make Loyalty 3.0 required reading for my Global Entrepreneurial Marketing Course, along with Jennifer Aaker's "The Dragonfly Effect," and a book I have co-authored called "Gear Up, Your Best Idea Ever!"Third, because I am putting my money where my mouth is. I pre-ordered Loyalty 3.0 when I first learned about it, and after it arrived this week and I read it, I came back to Amazon.com and bought 10 more copies to give away to clients and colleagues.The other reviewers have done a nice job of telling you what's in the book and why they like it, so I won't repeat those comments here. Instead I would encourage you to buy the book, read it and then put the principles into action. I am confident you will see tangible results as your customers, employees, co-workers, alumni, and investors take their loyalty to you and your product, service or cause to a new level.Tom Kosnik

I read this book a few years ago and have been paying attention to gamification since. At the time I read it it reminded me of ranking up through online games and their administration. After digesting the application of gamification for a few years my subtle suggestion is to consider what goal you want gamification to help you achieve. As best I understand the mathematics of gaming presupposes that all the players have the same goal. As such the duration of gamification as a problem-solving tool may well be bounded by leaders' abilities to write goals that people want to achieve. In governmental applications the skill of goal writing probably outweighs the value of gamification. Why? Because a government without a goal is what? Nothing. Who would eternally rank up for nothing?