Contact Center Agents Likely to Take Gamification Seriously

Plenty of people enjoy playing online and other interactive games. This is especially true for those who belong to the Millennial Generation (also known as Generation Y), those born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s. Many grew up playing such games.

Because of the wide generational appeal, gaming can also be great learning tools for teams of employees when it comes to increasing engagement.

One example can be found the contact center. Games are being used to improve worker performance by learning and solving customer issues, making customer service a fun activity. In fact, Jeff Canter, CEO of Uptivity, wrote in a 1 to 1 Media article, that a process called "gamification"— which uses scores and rules, and encourages competition—is a “hot business trend.” Over 70 percent of Global 2000 companies will have at least one “gamified” application by the end of 2014, notes a Gartner (News - Alert) study.

This type of engagement is important for contact centers. A Gallup study from 2012 found that the average 1,000-agent contact center losses $2 million a year because of disengaged employees.

Games in the contact center can lead to more competition and teamwork, generating a common commitment to achieve an objective, Canter said. The competition is a friendly one, and employees try to get the highest rank. In contact centers, employees may compete to handle the most calls, get the best rating for customer satisfaction or get the highest score on an exam.

Collaboration is often a key part of many games. Collaborative problem solving and employee cooperation are desired skills among many contact centers, as teamwork is vital to delivering a positive customer experience. Moreover, games encourage commitment, because they present a long-term goal for participants to gain knowledge and increase scores.

“By promoting these values in their contact center staff via gamification, managers can achieve much higher levels of employee engagement,” Canter said. “They can keep employees focused on competition with their peers by creating a point accrual system that rewards employees for delivering quality work and performing well on tests. Managers can encourage teamwork by assigning employees distinct roles and dividing the contact center staff up into teams for group point accrual purposes.”

By winning, employees will learn more about meeting customer needs, their company’s products, and how to help their fellow employees, he added.

Indeed, a game based on the agent’s actual company can be a great way for the company to teach its employees facts about the business, which of its products or services may meet individual customer needs, and which employees to contact to solve complex customer problems.

These will all lead to higher quality of customer service at the contact center. Agents will likely find that games beat out classroom instruction as a way to build up their skills.