MDI Gaming
Developed for Merchant Distributors Inc.
Challenge
As an employee in a supermarket chain, there are a lot of rules and procedures to keep track of to ensure the in-store customer experience is of top quality.
This also means that every employee needs to know everything about hygiene, uniforms, product replenishment, and customer service regulations. But how do you train your employees in these concepts, so they don’t just know the rules but also act upon them?
Solution
Our solution became MDI Gaming, which is the employee’s training ground in great merchandising. The game uses humour, achievements, and narratives to make knowledge about customer service, procedures, and the supermarket’s different departments playful yet challenging.
The players are navigated through a virtual supermarket by a manager character, where they need to solve tasks in the different departments. The tasks could be anything from choosing the correct order of operations when the lobster tank needs cleaning, choosing the correct line-up of the goods on the shelves or handling the situation when everything goes wrong in the deli section.
The players get direct feedback on the assignments through the virtual manager, who comments on whether their answers were correct or not during the game. The facilitator can access the players’ results and can use the information as a jumping-off point for discussions, daily status meetings, or similar initiatives. Because if for example, it’s specifically the lobster tank that causes the employees problems, then it might be a great area to add additional training.
The game format is, however, more than just assignments. The players can also win stars and earn badges. They also have their own avatar they can customize – for example by finding animals within the game.
Result
MDI Gaming was finished in 2022 and is continuously being rolled out to the supermarkets that Merchants Distributors inc. has as their customers. There are already plans for making more content and new possibilities for adjusting the look and content for specific customers.
The game format has also proved itself to be a great fit for other subjects and fields, so we’ll undoubtedly see more solutions like MDI Gaming in the future.
