Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Gamification Requires Personalization and Collaboration
It’s a given that engaged employees are better employees. In the contact center, customer engagement is impossible without employee engagement. Sounds like an easy prospect, but…how do you engage your employees? You can’t buy employee engagement in a box or order your employees to become more engaged. You can’t hire the most positive people on the planet and expect them to stay that way during the daily grind of a job…not without a lot of help.
For many organizations, the idea of “gamification” is a compelling one. It’s a way to help employees do their jobs in a way that’s more…well, engaging. The principles of video games are present: icons, badges, earning points and competing against others. It’s a great way to visualize success, and help employees visualize where they need to work harder to succeed. It’s also a way for companies to say, “We care about you and your job growth.”
A number of software solutions promise gamification, particularly in the contact center, but it’s about more than just purchasing software, according to a recent blog post by Nate Brown writing for ICMI.
“While there are countless systems and automated tools available, it is much more than buying a piece of software,” he wrote. “A personalized effort is required to create a true value-add program. While it can be helpful especially for ‘moment of need’ training, software rarely changes culture. In the end, it all comes down to authentic human relationships.”
Personalizing your gamification efforts first requires you to know your employees, understand their daily processes and recognize how you can motivate them better. Gamification should be a “top-down” process, noted Brown. It’s also important to know whether you’re trying to foster a competitive environment among employees or a collaborative one. While the former may be appropriate for sales employees, it could actually cause harm in the contact center environment: you don’t want workers taking steps to undo others’ work on customer relationships in order to score a few points or move up a level.
“For many gamification programs, it is all about competition and moving to the top of the leaderboard,” he wrote. “These types of initiatives often work well in a sales environment. Be careful when choosing one of these for your group, as they can often do more harm than good. In a service center, generally a more collaborative approach is best. Reward the individual behaviors that create success for the larger team and for your customers.”
Finally, choose solutions and implement programs that change regularly. While a gamification program might seem like a novelty at first, if it remains static, it will become boring (and largely useless), and employees will abandon it, along with their newfound employee engagement. Put someone in charge of the gamification program who can be committed to keeping it up-to-date, fresh and exciting.
“Think about why we are drawn to games….they simulate a unique and exciting experience. As soon as that game ceases to challenge us or surprise us, we will stop playing it,” wrote Brown.
Edited by Alicia Young