Gamification Vaillant Mission 2024

“We ensure a better climate”. Vaillant’s brand claim underlines the company’s role in the fight against the climate crisis - and can become a challenge. What happens when the (product) solutions on offer are so innovative that sellers and users cannot simply project them onto their everyday lives and understand them?

This is where we come in:

With a variety of challenges to impart knowledge, Vaillant is going on a roadshow through Germany and making it clear: Vaillant has answers to the pressing questions of our time and supports its dealers in actively shaping the future.

“Gamification as real added value instead of just collecting points.”

Our task

Vaillant supports its authorised partners in achieving the targets set for them (Green Deal). Edutainment formats promote dialogue and engagement with the climate crisis.

Our aim

Installers are finding it difficult to meet the demands placed on them. Full order books, a shortage of skilled labour and the challenges of day-to-day business mean that the switch to climate-neutral heating and cooling equipment is progressing more slowly than necessary.

As a result, we have set ourselves the following goals:

Visualise the need for change and raise awareness of its urgency
Raise awareness of the role of the installer in tackling the climate crisis
Share product knowledge and empower installers

Our strategy

The brand sets the framework; the target group, its needs and its paint points determine the content.
Not the other way round.

The result

Brand meets mindset, product meets gamification, analogue meets digital.

By combining the SAPERED service areas, we have created a creative learning experience that comes to life in four stations. An app developed by us is the central theme, complemented by analogue elements such as the Vaillant slot machine.

Creativity meets science

We create a training world where participants can move freely between challenges and choose the station(s) that are most relevant to them. We don’t do this because it’s trendy.

According to Self-Determination Theory, intrinsic motivation arises when three innate basic needs are met:

1. autonomy:
There is no agenda.
Participants have individual needs and pain points. Accordingly, they decide which training activities will help them and how much time they want to spend on them.

2. competence:
All training content enables professionals to build future knowledge and skills. Whether it is advising customers, installing air-to-water heat pumps or making important adjustments.

3. belonging:
The gamification approach encourages dialogue and allows participants to think outside the box. Participants discuss solutions and learn from each other. They visualise their predicted contribution to CO2 savings on the impact wall and feel part of a community.

Everyone counts

A chatbot lays the foundation: it asks the participants questions and reacts to their answers. Everything revolves around the climate crisis, the personal attitudes of professionals to certain issues and how their colleagues feel about the same issues: Only together are we strong.

At the end of this station, the chatbot asks participants to predict how many renewable heating systems they will be able to install in the coming months.

The resulting CO2 savings are displayed on the impact wall for all to see. The participants realise: My contribution is important for us to be successful as a community.

Training with the slot machine

Skilled craftsmen take their fortunes into their own hands. In the truest sense of the word. The slot machine randomly selects a house configuration.

An example: An unrenovated detached house from the 1960s. The 170m² living space is heated with radiators, etc.

The participants now choose the heating combination they think is optimal. The possible combinations can be found on NFC cards, and once they are placed on the machine, it shows whether they were right or wrong - including additional information.

In a playful way, we take away the fear of selling innovative products to our customers during the consultation - and thus remove one of the biggest obstacles to the energy transition.