The place of gamification in customer engagement theory

Abstract

Gamification captured the attention of both marketing researchers and practitioners about a decade ago. Despite the established conceptualization of gamification as a driver of intrinsic motivation and a range of empirical research on the topic, there is still uncertainty about its place as a marketing tool. Some researchers argue that gamification acts as a driver of customer engagement, others consider it as an outcome of the process. Such dual nature raises the question of the role which gamification plays in customer relationship management. This study aims to analyze gamification through the lenses of customer engagement theory in order to identify the features of the relationship between these concepts. To achieve that a bibliometric analysis was conducted and the existing knowledge on the topic of customer engagement was systematized. The findings were divided into four clusters and the content of those clusters was analyzed in details. Gamification was compared with the key customer engagement practices. Which allowed to identify four types of customers in terms of engagement in gamification: supporters, spectators, super fans, and fun seekers. The proposed classification may be used by both academics and practitioners for estimating potential outcomes of using gamification for engagement purposes among different types of customers.