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.