Using Gamification to Drive Platform Adoption
Cigna University faced the challenge of introducing employees to its new JAM Social Collaboration platform. To accomplish this, they developed a series of ten "Quests" to guide users through the platform's functionality in a fun and engaging way, testing the system's usability in the process.
These missions, challenges, or quests required users to perform a prescribed set of actions, following a path designed to build familiarity and competence with the new tool.
Program Design and Objectives
The two-week program was structured to deliver a new quest to participants via email each day. The mission was to complete the quest and post the achievement in a dedicated newsfeed. The tasks were designed to become progressively more difficult, both mechanically and socially, over the course of the program.
Primary Objectives:
- Engage learners and managers in a collaborative, social, and mobile learning experience.
- Expose users to the benefits and capabilities of Cigna's next-generation learning solution.
To aid employees, a short instructional video was available in the help section of the JAM site, providing the key to completing each quest.
Leveraging Gamification and Social Rewards
The program's design relied heavily on business gamification mechanics to motivate users.
- Rewards: Upon completing a quest, users earned 1,000 experience points. Other mechanics included kudos and badges.
- Recognition: Cigna University maintained a public, read-only group that announced the name of the first individual to complete the quest each day.
- Social Rewards: By asking learners to post their completion in the Quest JAM group, the system created "bragging rights" and prestige. These are powerful social rewards in business gamification, recognizing employees for being among the first to master a task.
Positive Results and Feedback
The Quests initiative was measured by survey feedback, which proved to be very positive.
When asked if the Quests were an effective way to learn and practice using the new tools, 51.8% of respondents gave a score of 5 out of 5. The average score for this question was 4.33.
One participant commented, "I thought the Quest was a great way to learn. It really engaged me in completing each task. I did learn more this way than I would have over the phone in a training call."