Why your business needs gamification: Sense Bank experience
The banking sector is actively looking for new ways to interact with customers, and gamification has become one of the most effective trends. It allows not only to diversify the user experience, but also to attract new audiences to financial products through game mechanics, elements of competition and rewards.
Among banks, Sense Bank is actively developing gamification, combining technology with interactive game elements in its digital solutions. Through the mobile application Sense SuperApp, clients can not only manage their assets and use financial services, but also participate in gamified quests.
The banking sector is actively looking for new ways to interact with customers, and gamification has become one of the most effective trends. It allows not only to diversify the user experience, but also to attract new audiences to financial products through game mechanics, elements of competition and rewards.
Among banks, Sense Bank is actively developing gamification, combining technology with interactive game elements in its digital solutions. Through the mobile application Sense SuperApp, clients can not only manage their assets and use financial services, but also participate in gamified quests.
Thus, Sense Bank demonstrates that banking service can be not only convenient and safe, but also interesting and bring positive emotions.
Such approaches become a competitive advantage for financial institutions (and any other business) and set new standards of engagement across the industry. The dev.ua editorial team learned more about this from Inna Tyutiun, a member of the board of Sense Bank, director of IT, retail and payment business and digitalization blocks. We also tested the games and interactive elements presented in Sense SuperApp to draw our own conclusions about them. More on this and more below.
More than a game. What tasks does gamification help solve?
According to Inna Tyutiun, for businesses, gamification becomes a way to solve several tasks at once: attract new customers, retain existing ones, create a positive experience, and increase brand value.
«In the field of finance, where services are often perceived as dry and formal, gamification allows you to make interaction with products more dynamic and understandable,» notes the member of the board of Sense Bank and director of the IT, retail and payment business, and digitalization blocks.
Inna Tyutiun, Member of the Board of Sense Bank and Director of IT, Retail and Payment Business and Digitalization Blocks
For businesses, particularly banking, in addition to attracting an audience and increasing its loyalty, gamification is a way to stimulate targeted customer actions, differentiate from competitors, and promote your own brand. It also performs an educational function.
«Gamification in banking services performs a powerful educational function: it simplifies the development of new services and helps customers unlock the full potential of the bank’s digital ecosystem. Having become engrossed in the game in the application, thanks to special quests, game tasks, ratings or rewards, users, as a result, become familiar with various payment options, investment opportunities, cost analytics or even financial planning tools. This happens unobtrusively, in an interesting and exciting way,» emphasizes Inna Tyutyun.
She adds that this approach motivates not only to use already known functions more often, but also to discover new services that were previously overlooked.
«Therefore, gamification helps increase customers' financial literacy, expands their set of useful skills, and builds brand loyalty through a positive learning experience,» Inna concludes.
Beyond this, there is another nuance that makes gamification of banking applications a big plus for users — this is the emotional factor, especially in conditions of constant stress.
Inna Tyutyun notes that gamification of banking applications today is becoming not only a tool for training or engagement, but also a way of emotional relief for the client.
«Game mechanics and interactive quests allow you to switch to positive emotions and find small „islands of peace“ for yourself in your daily routine. So a gamified banking service is not just a payment tool, but an element of care for users,» the member of the board of Sense Bank is convinced.
Explore Ukraine and get bonuses
A game has appeared in the Sense SuperApp mobile application that not only allows you to have fun and be distracted, but also brings benefits to the user in the form of bonuses.
«Journey through Ukraine» is a quest where you search for fragments of an ancient amulet and thematic items related to different regions of Ukraine, and receive bonuses as part of the Cash’u Club loyalty program. It was launched for Independence Day in collaboration with Mastercard.
In the game, picturesque routes, puzzles, and mindfulness exercises await you — we can confirm this after our own testing.
The game consists of five levels, and you can complete one each day. For each of the first four stages, you will receive one bonus from Cash’u Club. Each level has three free hints, and if you need more, you can exchange them for the accumulated caches.
Those who successfully complete five levels and collect all parts of the amulet will receive an exclusive reward from Cash’u Club: for seven days, 5% cashback will be valid on all purchases over 500 hryvnias in any category, and the maximum bonus amount is 100.
Accumulated bonuses can be easily withdrawn to a card, used to participate in gift draws, or donated to help the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The latter option is generally very valuable — because it means that everyone can do a good deed. And even if the help of one person is not significant, it will be more than tangible from tens of thousands of application users.
Games are not about age, but about the essence of a person
Dutch scientist Johan Geisinga has proven in his works that games are not about age at all, but about the very essence of a person. Games create new meanings, bring emotions, creativity, freedom of choice, an element of competition and shared experiences — for both adults and children.
So Sense Bank offered game elements in its app for different age groups.
«For young users aged 6 to 14, Sense Bank has introduced a children’s card TRY, which allows you to combine financial practice with game tasks. Parents can create a list of tasks with rewards, children complete them and receive money on the card. This approach not only motivates the child, but also forms the first experience of managing money, responsibility and understanding the value of money,» says Inna Tyutiun, member of the board of Sense Bank, director of IT, retail and payment business and digitalization blocks, in a comment.
«The task from parents, in particular, may consist of completing homework or other educational or sports activities. Moreover, children have the opportunity to offer their parents their ideas for implementation by creating new tasks or selecting ready-made ones from a template and sending them for approval,» she said.
Sense Bank gaming chips for adult clients also include numerous «big eggs» that replace each other in the Sense SuperApp application. Why «big eggs» and what is it? Previously, in colloquial speech, this was called «Easter eggs» — a secret deliberately included by developers in the software product, which serves as a reward for attentive users. In essence, this is a joke left by developers for those clients who will perform a number of atypical actions in the program. But such a colloquial name is borrowed from Russian, so here Ukrainianization is also more appropriate than ever.
For example, if you press your name in the profile in Sense SuperApp, an anti-stress game opens, which can help increase user activity in the application and, again, forms an emotional connection with the brand. By the way, this «big bang» can be found not only in the profile and it is not the only one — in Sense SuperApp there are quite a few hidden interactive elements that the client can test.
Another example of interactivity in Sense SuperApp is scratch cards, which are available daily to customers with an open credit limit. They contain hidden bonuses, discounts, and increased cashback percentages. If you haven’t missed a single card during the week, you’ll win a super prize at the end.
Scratch cards are the very gamification of processes, where the user can receive an additional reward for a simple action. This «game» forms a certain habit in the client: «you need to log in to the application every day.» For the bank, this client habit affects the ability to create additional sales of products or offers.
Gamification as a strategic advantage
In today’s digital world, gamification is one of the most effective tools for attracting and retaining customers for any business that works with online applications. It not only makes interaction with the product more interesting, but also facilitates user training and popularization of new services, strengthens the emotional connection with the brand and distinguishes the company from competitors. That is why the example of Sense Bank looks illustrative — the bank is not limited to classic financial functions, but creates a new level of customer experience.
