In the business world, keeping customers satisfied is indeed a major key to success. However, one should not ignore the fact that employee motivation plays a large role in creating customer satisfaction. In the contact center industry, agents play a significant role in fostering and maintaining customer satisfaction, and one of the major current trends in the industry focuses on keeping these agents motivated with gamification.
Gamification refers to applying game thinking and activities to a standard work environment as a means of encouraging competition, building motivation, and measuring progress in the workplace—in other words, employee engagement that in turn leads to greater work satisfaction and productivity. An Aberdeen Group research report indeed found that gamification in the contact center workforce leads to greater agent productivity as well as agent retention, showing significantly greater retention rates in contact centers employing gamification than in those that were not.
Providing healthy and meaningful competition is one major benefit of gamification. For example, contact center managers may provide incentives such as bonuses to reward agents for completing customer service calls in a certain amount of time, resolving a certain number of cases, or getting the most new subscriptions for a service. This method can and should be used to encourage healthy competition among peers by allowing agents to share their best practices and learn from their peers while driving them to perform at their personal best. Gamification may also be used for training purposes, enabling agents to compete with each other when learning new technologies or studying customer service strategies.
Much as students need motivation when learning, agents can also benefit from gamification as a source of motivation in the workplace. Being rewarded for achievement is certainly a powerful motivator, but gamification also enables agents to treat their work on a daily basis not just as a job, but as a fun and empowering way to engage with customers. Research shows that when agents are happy and focused, they handle customer service calls with greater precision and a better attitude. Therefore, any strategy which puts agents in a positive mindset is critical to customer service success.
Lastly, gamification allows for managers to measure employees’ level of commitment to the company and provide quantifiable data regarding the employee’s deliverables. The more an agent shows effort to deliver on a certain ask, the easier it is for managers to assess employee commitment to company goals. In addition, managers may actually track employee progress and better regulate their growth at the company by keeping track of results delivered by each employee.
Gamification may still be a growing trend, but the benefits to employees, companies, and ultimately the customers served cannot be underestimated. To achieve a happy and productive workforce, it is important to keep employees motivated. With this strategy, contact centers agents can deliver at their best in a way which keeps them inspired, skilled, and engaged with their customers.
