T-Mobile has planted more than 90,000 trees in Haiti, part
of an unconventional travel gamification program that has cracked the code of
how to incentivize travelers to change their booking behaviors. Rather than
rewarding employees directly, the program makes it easy for them to do
something for others.
According to Robert Jacobsen, T-Mobile senior manager of
travel, expense and card who launched the program in January, “We had a choice:
a $5 gift card or help save the world.”
It all started on a casual elevator ride. “The kid called me
‘sir,’” Jacobsen said. “In Seattle, that means ‘old dude.’” The experience
spurred a revelation that employees are different these days. To drive
compliance to T-Mobile’s travel program, visual guilt and reminders won’t
capture the attention of young, tech-oriented employees, he said.
Jacobsen contacted T-Mobile’s TMC, Travel and Transport,
about a gamification platform that had failed to gain significant traction in
the market because of one sticking point: What’s the reward?
“We went through the whole process of backing out what
travel gamification would look like to designing all the badges an working
through the ROI model to determine exactly how this changed behavior would
equate to value back to the company,” says Jacobsen. In the end, Jacobsen
arrived at a $5 gift card, golf balls or T-Mobile swag. “I hate gift cards
because they are not really worth the $5 ultimately, and the kid in the
elevator didn’t want any of that other stuff.”
Meanwhile, T-Mobile’s largest stockholder, Deutsche Telekom,
was exploring how its stateside investment could contribute to its sustainability
goals. “I just thought, let’s combine all this,” said Jacobsen.
Watch him describe the program in his own words, and keep reading after the jump.
Robert Jacobsen On Increasing Travel Compliance & Giving Back To The Earth
To apply the concept of gamification to corporate travel, T-Mobile’s Robert Jacobsen, a BTN 2015 Best Practitioner, looped in another corporate goal, sustainability. He rewards T-Mobile travelers for booking compliance not with gadgets and swag but by planting trees in Haiti. The altruistic motivation has worked: Compliance has gone up in almost all metrics, and as of this recording, T-Mobile had planted 87,586 trees in Haiti. “It means something to them,” Jacobsen said of his company’s travelers.
He began working with a charitable organization addressing
the catastrophic deforestation of Haiti. “The Eden Projects employs entire
villages to plant trees, which in turn gives the farmers and the planters money
to send their kids to school,” he said. Plus, each tree costs only 10 cents to
plant, stretching his program’s impact. “If the traveler does everything right,
they get 1,000 points. That plants 10 trees in Haiti.”
Jacobsen also brought in supplier partners. Delta wanted to
help and get more share in return, he said. So, travelers can earn points for
taking the lowest fare, booking online, booking preferred hotels—and booking
Delta.
Six months in, booking lowest logical and preferred air and
hotel had improved, Delta share rose 4 percent and compliance to Delta’s
contract went up 12 percent.