Happy Friday! We know lots of people are standing in line for the iPhone 5, or maybe just patiently waiting for it to be delivered to their door today. This is the perfect time  to catch up on some gamification, customer loyalty and social media news. Check out our favorite articles below.

How to Use Gamification to Reward Customers and Engage Prospects MarketingProfs 9/20/2012 This is a great article focusing on the need to retain existing customers, as well as engage potential customers. While many marketers focus on new customers, “it’s six to seven times more expensive to gain a new customer than it is to retain an existing one”. If you have been focusing on new customers more than your existing customers, this article gives you some advice on how to engage and retain the customers you already have, without abandoning the quest for new customers.

Can Gamification Make Customer Support Fun? Forbes 9/18/2012 There has been a lot of buzz about gamifying customer support to improve agent performance and Freshdesk is doing just that. The platform gives agents points, badges and trophies for hitting goals set-up by managers. The platform also adds a competitive edge for employees, displaying a leaderboard with top ‘players’. This looks pretty awesome initially, and boasts extensive analytics for managers to monitor their employees progress and performance. It will be interesting to see this in action and what kinds of improvement they see in employee performance.

5 Gamification Rules from the Grandfather of Gamification Forbes 9/18/2012 Charles Coonradt has been talking about game mechanics in the workplace for approximately 8 years, long before BigDoor, or anyone else was really aware of the potential of gamification. While he focused mainly on increasing employee productivity, the core concepts in his book “The Game of Work” are directly related to the concepts we talk about in gamification today. This is a great reminder to stay focused on simple gamification as well as a great recap of his book and principles for anyone who hasn’t read it.

Driving Kids to Succeed through Gamification Business2Community 9/17/2012 For many companies utilizing gamification, the next step seems to be a blending of virtual and real world tasks. Sports fans might get the chance to earn points for attending games or even purchasing food within a stadium. A new app called Munzee is embracing this trend to encourage kids to get outside and explore using their geo-rewards program. The app turns people into scavenger hunters who must explore their environments to find items highlighted through the app. Hunters are then rewarded for their discoveries through the app and social integration.

Is Consumer Trust Eroding? Convenience Store Decisions 9/18/2012 While the content of this article might be a bit depressing for many marketers, it highlights exactly the trend that BigDoor has continued to talk about. People are not trusting of brands, and they are less willing to provide brands with their information and details. We see this all the time and have seen huge benefits in gamification to help customers overcome this hurdle and register to websites. These are important stats to look at and valuable when understanding how big a problem marketers are facing.

Does (Customer) Loyalty Drive Referrals – OR Do Referrals Drive Loyalty? Social Media Insider  9/14/2012 On a more positive note, here is a great look at customer loyalty and how the referral system works to build your brand. The article focuses on retention, advocacy and purchasing loyalty and looks at the effect of customer referrals on brand loyalty and success. There are some really good tips in here for anyone focused on building loyalty through referrals.