The effect of the use of gamification strategy in mobile health applications on customer loyalty

Technological developments cause rapid changes. The introduction of mobile technologies has included users in the mobile world with new features. The progress of mobile marketing has affected the development of the mobile application market. Mobile applications, which developed in parallel with the development of mobile marketing, helped the development of new applications in the health sector. Developing mobile technologies are becoming widespread in the health sector. With the mobile health applications developed, different opportunities can be offered to patients or users who want a healthier lifestyle, and the applications can have the power to increase the quality of life of people. One of the rising values in mobile health applications is gamification. With gamification, health services can be offered to the user in a mobile environment. It aims to monitor their health by rewarding its users because it is motivational on the basis of gamification. The gaming experience leads to the formation of loyalty towards the mobile application with the value created by the user by connecting to the mobile application. In this research, the effect of game experiences on customer loyalty as a result of gamified content in mobile health applications was investigated and research hypotheses were examined through the Zombies, Run!11 mobile health application. Survey questions consisting of two different scales for gaming experience and customer loyalty were answered by the participants who used or used the mobile application. The data obtained as a result of the answers were analyzed with the statistical package program. As a result of the research, it has been shown that the game experience dimensions in mobile health applications have a positive effect on customer loyalty and suggested that healthcare companies or application developers can apply gamification strategies in their mobile applications to increase the loyalty of their customers.