The impact of gamification on customer digital experience and customer engagement: A Meta-synthesis approach

In a survey conducted in 2018, 58% of the customers stated that online advertising and marketing have either little or no effect on their buying behavior. In fact, brands need to find a new way to properly engage customers and make the right impact. Gamification gives organizations the opportunity to meet this need. Gamification, namely the application of typical game-playing elements in a non-game context, gives companies the opportunity to meet this need, allows them to tell their story and interact with customers in a way that they could not do before in common marketing formats. It demands interactivity and engagement and, crucially, it is fun. But the point is that around 80 percent of gamification programs fail to achieve organizations goals. This is primarily due to improperly gamified processes, but the other reason is to understand what gamification is, how it works, and more importantly, how gamification changes players' behavior and creates the desired outcome. The main purpose of this study is to answer these questions in a more limited way; that is, how gamification affects the customer experience and their engagements.

In recent years, with the growth of research in various fields and the encountering of the scientific community with an explosion of information, scientist have come to the conclusion that knowing and mastering all the aspects of a field and being up to date in all the field to a large extent is not possible. So, qualitative research, which brings the essence of research conducted on the particular subject to researchers in a systematic and scientific manner, has become increasingly widespread. The research method of this research is meta-synthesis, based on Sandelowski and Barroso's meta-synthesis approach. It has been done systematically in seven stages as a with in-depth study of 26 relevant related articles.

The systematic review of the articles indicates that dimensions of the game can affect customer engagement but through the mediation of the customer experience. This is consistent with Hamari's research (2017) that gamification does not directly affect behavior and leads to behavior through mediation. In this research, we found the customer experience as an intermediary role. Gamification consists of three parts, mechanics, dynamics and components. It does not directly affect behavior and leads to behavior through experience. So it is better to know the components of the customer experience. Immersion, cognitive dimensions, emotional dimensions and socialness are the dimensions identified in this study as components of the customer experience. Finally, a conceptual framework was created for these three concepts.

Over the past two decades, executives and researchers have strongly emphasized that customer engagement is relevant in the development and improvement of products and services and in the market orientations of firms. Among the various mechanisms of engaging customers, gamification has a special place. The phenomenon is still unknown, probably because it is still in its infancy. In general, gamification defines a set of design principles, processes, and systems that are used to influence, motivate, and engage individuals, groups, and communities. In this study, we first sought to conceptualize gamification because we were faced with it as a newly emerging concept. So, we decided to identify the different parts of gamification. Then, as we determined the mediating role of the customer experience, we proceeded to explain the digital customer experience. By identifying the relationships among the components of these two concepts, we came to their relationship with customer engagement. The point is that all of these components need to be done in harmony. Gaming components can affect the customer experience. This experience can be achieved in different ways. Depending on what the consequences are, it can increase or decrease the ability to engage customers. It should be noted that gamification must be a strategic decision, not a sudden one, Brands need to be clear about their ultimate goals and reversibly design their gamification processes to achieve their goals. Gamification is a powerful tool for integrating with other marketing processes. Another finding of this research is that the customer's gamified experience must be continuous in order to cause the desired engagement. Organizational and individual learning is one of the important outputs of gamification. In this regard, using games to help customers to discover and learn can be an important benefit of gamification. Finally, it is hoped that this research, with all its shortcomings, will help organizations to exploit the concept of gamification and use it alongside other marketing tools to create better value and experience for customers.