KONE
In accordance with its strategy, KONE Corporation, known as a manufacturer of elevators and escalators, among other products, wants to win with its customers. Wanting to inspire and encourage their personnel to discuss what the above objective means for everyone’s work, the company decided to use the ways and means of gaming, among others.
For a considerable period of time, KONE had been considering the use of various gaming features as part of its strategic communication. But finding the right type of game was not easy, however, since playing a game was not the main objective. Instead, it was to make people think about strategic questions at a practical level.
The model offered by Talent Vectia steered people towards concrete analysis of how each and every one can personally influence things in real life. Simultaneously, the connection to the entity was retained throughout the game.” — Director Christina Poulsen, responsible for KONE Corporation’s internal communications
TAILORING TO THE NEEDS OF KONE
Games are a crucial step in the progress from lecturing towards learner-centered activities, which highlight the individual’s personal action. KONE uses a conventional board game called Customer Journey, but a corresponding philosophy is also applied in digital games.
Talent Vectia and KONE collaborated in tailoring the game to meet the exact needs and requirements of KONE. Among other things, there were questions about submitting tenders and performing jobs at the installation site.
The background covered a wide range of research reflecting the customers’ expectations and situations in customer encounter.
From all this, KONE has gained a profound view of the customer’s journey covering the product’s entire life cycle, from planning and design to the final stage of renewal. It was the encounters experienced during the journey that the company wanted to go through in the Customer Journey game.
Tailoring was just the element providing the game with the company-specific concreteness, which inevitably leads discussion towards the people’s own work, instead of the companies’ general operative ideas and business principles. On the other hand, players are also required to place themselves in the daily life of other people in questions relating to matters which they usually never deal with.
THE BEST BENEFIT FROM THE LONG TRAINING PROGRAM
The game has been played world-wide, in large-scale personnel events, training programs and minor team meetings. There have been players from the highest executive level, as well as ordinary workers.
The feedback has been quite enthusiastic.
“One comment from a managerial training session lasting several days was that the game, which only took a couple hours, was the best benefit of the entire event”, says Christina Poulsen.
The account from the Spanish communication department was that some players started putting their souls into concrete situations with great passion.
In a game session, one of the teams went on discussing the first question for so long that players themselves started worrying about the slow progress of things. Nevertheless, the long discussions generated plenty of new ideas.
“Discussion is the very purpose of the game. The correct answers selected during the game are not the only true answers, but the main thing is to bring forth ideas that help our customers succeed”, states director Poulsen.