JUST LET THEM PLAY: AN EMPIRICAL DEMONSTRATION OF CUSTOMER RETENTION THROUGH GAMIFICATION IN MOBILE FITNESS APP

Purpose: Acknowledging the challenge of users abandoning fitness apps along with the need for personalized and engaging strategies remains crucial for attaining sustained success. This study enriches the existing scholarship by critically assessing how gamification influences experience dimensions constituents and their consequences on customer retention. Design & Research Methodology: Quantitative research design includes both Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) and regression approaches used to analyze complex relational dynamics among key variables. Data were collected from 384 app users of the Growfitter fitness app in India, with responses gathered directly through the app interfaces. Findings: The results suggest that an interactive experience components strongly impacts customer interactions, improving customer loyalty and brand perception. Additionally, gamification has become highly favourable for brand recognition and customer satisfaction, as well as an important role of motivating users to participate and be committed with fitness app ecosystems. These insights reinforce the value of embedding gamification techniques into user touchpoints to optimize sustained engagement and deepen brand connection. Practical implications: The findings guide the brands in the fitness app industry to add gamification to help users continue using the app and engage more. By incorporating gameful experiences, fitness apps can elevate stronger customer loyalty, strengthen brand awareness, and improve satisfaction. Notably, the results indicate that the benefits of gamification extends uniformly across user segments, suggesting that fitness app brands can adopt these strategies at scale without requiring demographic customization. Originality: To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study in the field of fitness app retention that comprehensively investigates all experience dimensions “Gameful Experience, Customer Experience, and Brand experience” collectively. Additionally, by collecting responses directly through the app interfaces, this study archives high ecological validity, making its insights highly applicable to real-world fitness app marketing and design strategies.