To the customer, the call center can oftentimes be a place of full of helpful but dry sounding, unenthusiastic employees on the other end of the line (of course, though, this is dependent on the company). For example, I was stuck in a phase where I was calling one company almost on a daily basis for updates and holds being placed on my customer account; however, every single time I called, it was like I forgot I was even talking to a professional representative. Rather, the call felt like I was casually chatting away with one of my friends. That kind of environment is truly the biggest indicator of an equally friendly and light-hearted call center environment. What the customer experiences during the phone call is a tried and true reflection of where the agent is calling from.

Don’t you wish you could get your call center to have that same feel? Keeping customer service fresh is nowhere near the easiest thing to do – but you can do it. In fact, when you put a playful spin on the entire process, better overall results come forth. While usually fooling around and playing games is nowhere near considered a productive day at work, some of these ideas may help you better manage and train your call center employees to ensure increased agent satisfaction, stronger customer relationships and more business profit because of it.

Don’t pick a game that simply won’t cut it

Mind you, we’re not talking about the simple, “let’s have a post-call discussion” or Q&A style game. Those can oftentimes still consist of boring and too straightforward questions. (ie: “What did you learn from that call?” or “What can you improve upon next time?”) That will only make for a big fat yawn.

Here’s one for you to mull over:

Gather a group of call center representatives together during a time frame I like to call, “Breaking for the Better.” Taking a break every now and then to better your overall operations is never a bad thing to do. The other good thing about this game is that it doesn’t require any materials at all – that is, unless you’d like to provide some notepads and writing utensils, but they are not mandatory.

Now, have each representative sit down in chairs facing one another, and give them a scenario to act out. For example, have one participant take a turn being angry and unreasonable, while the other can then switch and be overly confused and unaware. While this game requires representatives to be open and step out of their comfort zones, it will definitely make for some good laughs, which produces an overall happier, lighter environment. Perhaps also consider an icebreaker game to get all of the participants familiar and/or comfortable with one another before diving into these more intensive ones.

If this game doesn’t seem a good fit for you, challenge yourself to create your own! In reality, playing fun games with your employees can be the most entertaining and effective form of training available if you as a contact center manager is open to the idea of it.