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The game changer: gamification in contact centers

In the dynamic world of contact centers, innovation is crucial – and one such innovation making a significant impact is gamification. By integrating game design elements into everyday tasks, gamification transforms agent engagement and productivity, ultimately enhancing the customer experience.

A landscape of stress and burnout

Contact centers grapple with challenges such as high turnover rates and low job satisfaction. The repetitive nature of work, pressure to resolve issues quickly and increasingly demanding customers can lead to agent burnout. Indeed, some call centers have an annual turnover rate exceeding 100%, meaning today’s workforce may not be there even a year from now.

This is where gamification can come to the rescue.

The potential of gamification

Gamification isn’t about employees playing games on company time, it’s about bringing the essence of games – fun, engagement, competition, achievement – into the workplace.

By introducing points, badges, and leaderboards into daily tasks, gamification makes work more engaging and rewarding. However, it’s not about replacing intrinsic motivation (that comes from within) with extrinsic rewards. Instead, it’s about enhancing intrinsic motivation by providing feedback that allows agents to excel in their roles.

Games trigger primal human motivations and emotions, such as the thrill of competition, the joy of achievement, and the satisfaction of cooperation. By introducing these aspects into the contact center, we transform mundane tasks into engaging challenges and colleagues into teammates with a shared quest.

Level up your contact center

evaluagent, a high-scoring player among quality assurance and gamification platforms, brings a gamified community to your contact center, featuring leaderboards, levels, and social challenges. And the cherry on top? The points agents earn can be redeemed for tangible rewards.

Gamification in action

1. A points system based on performance metrics:
evaluagent enables centers to implement a points system based on performance activities. Agents earn points for being active in the platform, achieving high customer satisfaction scores, or achieving high quality scores. These points can then be redeemed for rewards, creating a direct link between performance and incentives.

2. Badges for skill mastery:
Badges are awarded to agents demonstrating mastery in areas like technical knowledge, problem-solving, or communication skills. This motivates agents to improve their skills and makes their progress visible to peers and supervisors.

3. Leaderboards for friendly competition:
Leaderboards foster a sense of friendly competition among agents. By displaying top performers in categories like fastest resolution time or highest customer satisfaction, leaderboards inspire agents to strive for excellence. evaluagent ensures this competition doesn’t detract from the team’s collaborative spirit or the primary goal of serving customers.

4. Missions or challenges:
Missions or challenges make workdays more engaging and fun. An agent might be challenged to achieve a certain performance level within a week or to complete eLearning. Completing these missions could earn the agent special recognition or rewards.

5. Progress bars and levels:
Like in video games, progress bars and levels represent an agent’s progress or skill level. As agents gain experience and improve their skills, they ‘level up’. This visual representation of progress can be a powerful motivator.

Implementing gamification effectively

Successful gamification in contact centers hinges on thoughtful implementation. It’s not about awarding points for just showing up or creating a competitive environment that distracts agents from serving customers. Instead, gamification should be used to make work more intrinsically rewarding.

The future of gamification in contact centers

Looking ahead, the potential of gamification in contact centers is huge. As more companies recognize the benefits of this approach, it’s likely we’ll see more innovative uses of gamification.

When implemented correctly, gamification can make work more engaging and rewarding for agents, leading to improved productivity and customer service. But remember, gamification is not a one-size-fits-all solution. It needs to be tailored to the specific needs and challenges of each contact center to yield the best results – and evaluagent stands as a perfect partner to facilitate this transformation.

See gamification in action in our Community product tour.