Loyalty 3.0: How to Revolutionize Customer and Employee Engagement with Big Data and Gamification

This writer has much to say, and it is not so easy to follow all he says as he has so many good ideas. What happened to me is that about a third of the way in the book, I had to stop, go back to the start and read it again as there was many excellent ideas, I was struggling to understand. The idea of the book is to engage your clients and employees with game mechanics. Having said that I am not sure how I can use the information he presents. I can understand how his theories can work in a market with 100,000s of people. Say for example 1% are keen on this gamification, well that gives you a market of 1000s of people. If you have a brand product like photoshop which millions have purchased, then yes people will take your courses because it is a named product that has marketable skills. If you are a rock star with tens of millions of fans, again people will want to get involved. This can provide you with a great data source for data mining and a large potential client base. However, what about if you have products like I do of say 100 to 1000 customers. 1% will pay for nothing. It will provide little data. I do not think this problem was addressed in the book. It left me wondering, all these good ideas but what can I do with them. Having said this it certainly made me think, and it certainly is one of the best business idea books I have read in a long time.

Mr. Paharia proposes a mixture of motivation, databases and gammification to make the customers, partners and employees more active and truly loyal. Motivation as the fueling, databases to know customers in depth and gammification as the engine. It has to do with giving goals to users and the rewards, promoting competition but at the same time colaboration. In this context we have key issues: measure and motivate, recognition and rewards, loyalty, reputation and promote high value activities. NICE !

I had a chance to read an advanced copy, and I was taken by the link the author draws between video games and behavioral science, and how companies can use that link to motivate people to participate in something as mundane as an employee portal. Big data plays a huge role here, too, and with news coverage of the NSA making everyone, everywhere familiar with the concept, the timing seems perfect to talk about using big data for purposes other than ferreting out bad guys. Some facts are true eye-openers. The pace of digital data growth is jaw-dropping, and its implications for businesses leave you wondering if and how companies are applying these techniques to you. It's an easy read, and the science on which its concepts are based is put into a useful context that later folds nicely into the case studies you'd expect from a business book. Gamification makes its appearance after the foundational concepts are described, but Paharia, who is a gamification guru, does an admirable job of dialing down the role his seminal company played in the evolution of that industry. Good thing, too. Only Apple can get away with talking about itself incessantly. Paharia knows this and wisely lets the concepts and the case study subjects tell the story for him. The final chapters offer tips for implementing Paharia's concepts. It seems clear that many of these are the result of his experience in gamification, and to his credit, he doesn't settle for weak platitudes or generic "envision, plan, execute, measure" bromides. Paharia views crafting a Loyalty 3.0 campaign as "a design problem" because participants will find themselves inside an experience, almost as if they're inside a story. These are the kind of viewpoints, in addition to practical do's and don'ts, that I was hoping for here. "Loyalty 3.0" reminds me a bit of Paco Underhill's terrific "Why We Buy," which also showed how behavioral science can be used to help companies understand and anticipate what people want -- and then create environments that encourage the results those companies want. In a way, that's what this book is about.

Initially when I started reading Loyalty 3.0 I thought it was good information. However, I quickly found fluffy filler content in various places. Whenever I see that in a book it generally indicates poorly planned out framework for the information being delivered. Or simply a lack of compelling and punchy info. Or alternatively a rush job on writing the book without heavy post editing. Whatever the case, there were useful parts in the book. But there are much better books on Amazon on the same topic. I won't reference them here since I think that's bad form to do so.

The purpose of this review is to encourage you to buy Loyalty 3.0: How to Revolutionize Customer and Employee Engagement with Big Data and Gamification , read it, and put it into action so that you will have more loyal employees, customers, and other stakeholders. Why, because Rajat Paharia has created amazing results for a variety of businesses using the principles inside, and you can too. Why believe me? First, I am a self declared bookaholic who has read thousands of business books since i started my business career in 1975. Loyalty 3.0 is in the top 10 business books I have read. Second, because I have been teaching marketing, first at the Harvard Business School (1985-89 and 1994-97) and then at Stanford in the Department of Management Science and Engineering 1990-Present). My intention is to make Loyalty 3.0 required reading for my Global Entrepreneurial Marketing Course, along with Jennifer Aaker's "The Dragonfly Effect," and a book I have co-authored called "Gear Up, Your Best Idea Ever!" Third, because I am putting my money where my mouth is. I pre-ordered Loyalty 3.0 when I first learned about it, and after it arrived this week and I read it, I came back to Amazon.com and bought 10 more copies to give away to clients and colleagues. The other reviewers have done a nice job of telling you what's in the book and why they like it, so I won't repeat those comments here. Instead I would encourage you to buy the book, read it and then put the principles into action. I am confident you will see tangible results as your customers, employees, co-workers, alumni, and investors take their loyalty to you and your product, service or cause to a new level. Tom Kosnik

Rajat does a great job of setting the stage, presenting the opportunities/challenges and finally giving solid direction on creating your own execution path. Don't judge the book by it's cover, the cover is full of buzz words but the author clearly defines those buzz words and provides context that is relevant to the story. Well organized and easy to understand; I have a clearer picture of the few things I already *knew* and learned a ton of new stuff also!

Some great ideas from the pioneers of gamification. It's still relevant today and has sound fundamentals that will keep it relevant for a bit longer. I recommend it for anyone who is starting to consider gamification or who needs some additional background information. I really appreciated the work that was done in compiling the principles and examples (some of which I was a participant in).

The book delivers a brand new view of Gamification as the next step in the evolution of customer engagement. The book presents a compelling argument that this evolutionary step was made possible by the latest advancements in technology and specifically the notion of Big Data - the ability to collect, analyze, and extract insight from enormous amounts of data. The book provides a great introduction to Gamification and covers the topic from various angles such as behavioral, psychological, and technological. It also provides some really interesting use cases that walk the reader step-by-step through the thinking process and implementation of some Gamification projects. I'd recommend this book to anyone who's curious about Gamification whether they are novice or expert...there's something in this book for everyone to learn. One of my favorite features in the book is the summary that the author provides at the end of each chapter. I found that this summary helped me get more out of the book.