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Call Centers Turn to Game Techniques to Engage Agents

By Michelle Nicolson, TMCnet Contributing Writer

Looking for new ways to keep agents motivated, call centers are turning to game techniques to improve engagement and help employees provide more positive customer interactions.

Called “gamification,” the trend is to use the thinking and mechanics behind games to engage employees by providing rewards for accomplishing tasks or creating a sense of competition, among other strategies typically found in the gaming industry.

“People have fundamental needs and desires for reward, status, achievement, self-expression, competition, and altruism, among others," said Scott Buchanan, head of solutions marketing at NICE Systems (News - Alert), in an article for SmartCustomerService.com. "These needs are universal and span generations, demographics, culture and gender."

The repetitiveness is a problem for employee retention in the call center industry, which typically has a high turnover rate. "Answering support calls and working between ticket numbers and resolutions quickly gets repetitive and boring," said Vikram Bhaskaran, director of marketing communications at FreshDesk, a provider of online customer support and help desk software, in an article for CRM.com.

But it also is a factor for agents that start to disengage on the job. "When support reps are bored or [un]motivated, they start making little errors, like typos or sounding irritable, without realizing it," Bhaskaran said. "Worse still, agents start sounding like lifeless robots reading out scripts."

The trend is spawning increased business for gamification technology companies such as Badgeville, which reported record growth in the third quarter of 2013. The company believes contact centers are an excellent arena for gamification — and their customers agree.

"Our customers are looking for more ways to engage a new generation of employees through collaboration to improve performance, compliance, and overall satisfaction," said Chris Zaske, global vice president of enterprise workforce optimization at Verint (News - Alert) Enterprise Intelligence Solutions, a Badgeville client.

"The contact center has become mission control for many organizations that seek to put the customer experience at the center of their business strategy,” said Roger Woolley, Verint vice president of solutions marketing. “This starts with employee engagement. Happy employees that have the right training and tools to help customers often lead directly to a positive customer experience and improved financial performance."