Should CRM be learning from game designers?

I hadn’t really thought about this before but, as Russell Davies (http://russelldavies NULL.typepad NULL.com)points out, CRM programs that distribute points according to behaviour may soon start to look quite a lot like games (http://russelldavies NULL.typepad NULL.com/planning/2010/04/steal-other-things NULL.html).

I think it’s a nice idea. Instead of consumers just having lots of separate points balances they could somehow be combined with leader-boards and competitions between friends. In the spirit of World of Warcraft, people could even group their efforts to unlock even more points. In theory, consumers would get a fun experience and possibly more points and companies would get their attention for longer and hopefully increase loyalty,

Russell is worried that it won’t turn out quite like that… He’s reckons that most companies will just nick the mechanics like leader-boards and ignore the fact it’s really hard to design a game that people want to play.

“Which means we’re going to encounter a bunch of crappy sorta-games foisted on us… And they’re going to be no fun. They’re going to drive us all mad.”

He’s right of course. The more time consumers are asked to spend, the better the experience has to be. And the CRM industry doesn’t have a great record of creating nice, enjoyable experiences – the lower value put on potential future return means that a few too many, slightly too urgent emails tend to be sent. Even Amazon and Wiggle – both of which are occasionally helpful – send me far too much mail for it to be called a satisfying experience.

So, while he’s definitely right that games designers should be involved in the development of any new mechanics in the future, maybe we should actually be asking them to help make the experience of CRM more stimulating now. Their sense of what messages to send, containing what information, when, might be just what clients need to move from quick spam to providing an enjoyable long-term experience.