Contact center gamification done well lifts agent engagement, customer outcomes, and – ultimately – business results.
Even the simplest of gamification initiatives can drive these significant upshots.
Consider awarding badges for the most improved agent, outstanding customer conversations, and incredible runs of perfect quality scores.
In doing this alone, Garth Hinkel, Chief Technology Officer at EvaluAgent, says:
“It goes over and above what you get as a quality score, enabling additional peer recognition.
“Also, it’s fine to incentivize metrics, but badges bring the focus back on the journey to get there.”
Finally, it’s easy for high-performing agents to become accustomed to receiving high-quality scores. As such, they become – over time – a less significant motivator.
When this happens, the contact center risks churn amongst its most valuable employees.
Yet, an additional gamification layer – on top of quality assurance (QA) – helps to nullify that risk.
Badges are an excellent start. Yet ideally, that gamification layer will take the shape of a more well-rounded strategy.
Top-Notch Contact Center Gamification Ideas
There are many agent actions, behaviors, and metrics that contact centers can choose to gamify.
For instance, leaders may gamify learning, collaboration, and schedule adherence.
However, the contact center will most likely convert performance expectations – like those within their quality scorecard – into game rules and targets.
Then, they’ll build a narrative and timeline, share progress notifications, and publicly celebrate the winners, working with the team throughout for maximum engagement.
Badges typically work well, as Hinkel suggests. But, contact centers can mix it up by incorporating:
- Levels / Grades
- Graphs and Charts
- Points-based systems
- Percentage-based systems
- Leaderboards
With leaderboards, contact centers must be careful to only reward those at the top. Otherwise, agents consistently ranking near the bottom may become demoralized.
Also, consider creating team games, crafting initiatives around events like the Olympics, and making festive occasions – such as Halloween and Christmas – part of the fun.
Building These Ideas Into a Gamification Strategy
For Hinkel, the ideal starting place when devising a contact center gamification strategy is to consider; what are my most common customer queries?
By gamifying these conversations, contact centers get the most bang for their buck.
Yet, before this, agents must understand what an excellent resolution path looks like when solving that challenge – according to Hinkel. He adds:
“That includes thinking about the behaviors of agents, but also considering the journey that you want them to take to achieve the ideal outcomes.”
Hinkel also advocated for starting small, to first pick out just one or two of those behaviors and actions while acclimatizing the team with the concept of gamification.
“If people don’t buy-into it, gamification doesn’t work,” he concludes.
As such, it’s also critical to engage agents early, discuss some of the ideas above, and uncover those that drive the most interest.
Then, the contact center can layer those into its strategy and consider possible rewards.
Compelling Rewards for the Gamification Champs
“Get suggestions from your people when creating rewards,” stresses Hinkel. “Involve agents in surveys, brainstorming sessions, and polls… Even suggestion boxes can do the job.”
Often, they’ll ask for experience rewards, such as tickets to festivals, gigs, and sporting events. These can work well as employees create fun memories they’ll forever associate with the workplace.
At other times, they may ask for a longer lunch, an extra break, or the opportunity to leave an hour early – giving them a greater work-life balance.
Then, there are monetary and physical rewards, which may include various gadgets from coffee machines to air pods, speakers to smartwatches.
Yet, Hinkel highlights the importance of mixing up rewards so they don’t become stale. Doing so helps to keep agents curious as to what they may win.
Some contact centers have even employed a prize wheel, which agents spin to determine their reward – adding a sense of excitement.
Most critical – however – is to surprise agents with rewards, giving them immediate gratification. Saying: “Do this today, and you’ll win a prize,” can create negative intrinsic motivation.
Unfortunately, this is just one of many traps contact centers stumble into with gamification…
What Not to Do with Gamification
Agents have many intrinsic motivators, including mastery, autonomy, and purpose. Contact centers should consider how they play to each of these with gamification rather than getting carried away with external awards.
According to Hinkel, many contact center leaders can lose sight of this. He also spots an issue where they can set unrealistic goals, stating:
“If objectives are unattainable, people become discouraged. And when it’s too easy, gamification doesn’t provide that extra spark of motivation. It is often a difficult needle to thread.” – BLOCK
Alongside this, Hinkel notes several other pitfalls to avoid. These include:
- Rewarding Agents In Isolation – Be wary of how agents achieve their goals. They may sacrifice one outcome for another. For instance, a rep trying to achieve a high CSAT score may not pass on critical information that risks upsetting the customer.
- Allowing Gamification to Go Stale – Commit to regular reviews, which include agents. What is working, and what’s not? Utilize auto-AQ to track the impact on agent performance – across behaviors and contact reasons – and take the evaluation to a more granular level.
- Overcomplicating the Initiative – Too many levels and rules risk agents not buying into the game. When that happens, the benefits of contact center gamification wilt.
These traps illustrate the importance of starting small with gamification and slowly building a more holistic strategy that includes agent feedback.
Kickstart Your Contact Center Gamification Journey
EvaluAgent provides quality assurance (QA) software to monitor agent performance across various intents and behaviors.
Contact centers can utilize this to spotlight real-time metrics, sparking opportunities for in-the-moment recognition and gamification.
From there, leaders may track achievements, award badges, and give rewards.
Building on this, they may kickstart a gamification strategy that engages teams, lowers attrition, and drives targeted business outcomes.
To learn more and kickstart your gamification strategy, visit: www.evaluagent.com
