Customer relationship management is important for any contact centre to deliver the best customer experience possible. However multi-channel online customer service is increasingly allowing customers to resolve common queries themselves, only engaging with contact centre agents when they experience more complex issues.
According to a study by the Gallup Employee Engagement Index, contact centre agent – which falls under the ‘service worker’ category – engagement is actually declining. Employee engagement is a growing concern for organisations as customer experience affects both brand perception and revenue.
Engaging employees is most certainly not a game, but gamification could be well positioned to help.
Making a game of sales in contact centres can increase customer satisfaction
Gamification is the application of game mechanics to influence behaviours and activities – to measure and motivate people. Gamification can help organisations connect with their customers and engage their employees.
A reward system for contact center agents – when they hit certain sales or service goals within the day, week, month or year – gamfication is great way to keep contact centre agents involved and interacting with colleagues, and not just for the newer generation, who grew up with gaming.
Gamification is not just entertainment; it is a powerful way to measure and motivate employees – The game’s afoot
Gamification provides an alternative to existing programs, engaging employees in multiple challenges and contests simultaneously. Gamification can help turn every support call or ticket into a chance for contact centre agents to earn points. The more points they earn, the higher they move up the leader board and receive more bragging rights or even other incentives.
For example, having agents compete for an Average Handle Time “crown” weekly, a daily contest for Best Customer Feedback score and First Call Resolution challenges, can all be run at the same time. All employees can track their rank via a leader board – for their team, site, or across sites – on their personal portal.
And it’s powerful when recognition comes from achievements that are tightly aligned with company goals. A powerful driver of collaboration, gamification can help identify top performers and encourage them to publish their best practices in a central library for others to view.
According to a report by Aberdeen Research in 2012, organisations that deployed gamification have seen annual revenue grow nearly twice as fast as their peers. The concept of gamification seems to speak to employees in a positive way and set imaginations alight.
A bat but no ball
Done badly, gamification can actually have precisely the opposite effect on employees than that intended. If contact centre agents aren’t equipped with the right tools to help them achieve these challenges set to them, they will become frustrated and less engaged.
All sales and support channels need to work synergistically to seamlessly deliver a on a brand’s promise to each customer segment, but in turn, the contact centre customer service platform, needs to deliver on a consistent experience at every customer interaction.
Gamification isn’t about fun and entertainment. It connects with people’s need for recognition but organisations need to understand both their customers’ and employees’ needs to invest in implementing the right customer service technology to meet these requirements consistently across all channels. Is it time for you to get in the game too?
Additional Information
Neldi Rautenbach is Marketing Manager at Synthetix
For additional information about Synthetix visit their Website
