They have no cash value, they don't do anything that's
particularly interesting, and they might not be tradable for anything useful.
But business travelers will want to collect the colorful, circular online
"badges" that are the bread and butter of American Express Global
Business Travel's new gamification platform, according to the travel management
company, and so Amex is banking on them as the new currency of compliance.
American Express characterized the system it unveiled last
week in San Diego during the Global Business Travel Association's annual convention
as a pilot. It's being used by Citrix Systems, a technology firm that Amex
Global Business Travel vice president of deal consulting and business services
Alicia Tillman said has about 7,000 travelers and annually spends more than $50
million on air travel.
The pilot just began. As such, it's not yet known whether
the platform— which pulls booking data from online booking tools and
automatically awards badges if bookings meet the criteria of assigned
"missions," like booking preferred suppliers or sufficiently in
advance—will positively influence Citrix travelers' behavior. But if it does, Tillman
said the benefits will be significant.
"This will help prevent leakage, drive savings and
ultimately keep travelers safe because they booked within the program,"
Tillman said last week during a press conference.
Amex competitor Carlson Wagonlit Travel, meanwhile, has a
similar philosophy and last week announced its own gamification platform. That
system won't be available until late September or early October, CWT Solutions
Group Americas senior director Joel Wartgow last week told BTN.
The Gaming
Generation?
Amex's Tillman positioned the development of the
gamification platform not only as part of a larger strategy to
"engage" travelers differently (given that "the new business
traveler has greater influence on travel decisions today than they have ever
had before") but also as an acknowledgement of the increasing number of
younger business travelers.
"This is a group that has been motivated by rewards and
incentives, not the policies and sanctions that our industry has been largely
based on for the past 20 years," Tillman claimed. "This is a
generation that has grown up on social platforms, including games, and they are
well-utilized at the same time by almost all generations."
Some corporate executives might chafe at the notion that younger
employees require rewards to follow a travel policy. But American Express
Global Business Travel president Kim Goodman told BTN that the gamification platform, when presented conceptually
among several potential initiatives last year to large corporate clients,
generated some of the strongest positive reactions and spurred the travel
management company to further develop the idea.
Gamification generated "an incredible amount of
excitement and feedback," Goodman said. "The corporation recognizes
that it needs to engage the traveler, not just dictate."
Developed with gamification tech firm Badgeville, the Amex
platform allows users to compare their badge-collection efforts with those of
their colleagues and other business units. The specific compliance actions for
which travelers would earn badges would be up to the client.
Amex won't provide users with tangible offline rewards for
earning a certain number of badges. Though the TMC would work with the client
on designing other reward tiers should the client want to go in that direction,
Tillman said the badges might do the trick on their own.
"We have found, through a lot of gamification research,
that that's all that's needed to be able to drive certain behavior," she said.
"If a company wants to offer a more extrinsic award, they have the ability
to link to any reward or recognition program they already have, or they can
create one as well."
Citrix, at least for the first 30 days of its trial, plans
to use the badges as their own reward, Tillman said.
Intrinsically
Rewarding
Wartgow said CWT won't offer rewards beyond points and
badges either, but he noted that should corporate clients want to expand the
reward possibilities, a wide range of options exist that don't necessarily
carry a direct cost.
"There's virtual rewards here in terms of points and
badges," he explained. "Depending on what behavior you want to
modify, there will be different types of low- to no-cost rewards or [higher-]
cost rewards that are going to be a better fit. We're going to work with
customers on what will make the most sense. A low-cost one could be a preferred
parking spot, or noise-cancelling headphones for a frequent traveler."
Infrequent travelers who demonstrate a high rate of
compliance could be rewarded with, for example, some level of leniency
regarding policy for a 30-day period: perhaps the ability to fly in business
class on a six-hour flight when policy restricts that to flights of at least
eight hours, or to book on occasion a nonpreferred yet more convenient hotel,
Wartgow said.
Offered by its Solutions Group consulting arm, CWT's system
will enable users to customize badge-earning qualifications for particular
groups or business units, Wartgow said. For example, some units may have
different advance-booking policies than others and the gamification platform
can be customized to reflect that.
Available worldwide in English upon its debut, CWT's
solution will carry a per-participant subscription fee, Wartgow said. Amex's
Goodman declined to reveal pricing details of her travel management company's
gamification offering.