How call center gamification can help you retain your agents

One of the major challenges contact centers face is battling high agent turnover rates. From flexible work hours to social events, there are endless ways companies try to reduce attrition.

A great method to retain talent is introducing call center gamification, which is the process of including games in agents’ daily activities. A well-known example is offering prizes to agents in order to encourage growth in their engagement and performance.  

In this article, we’ll show you some of the benefits of using call center gamification.

Gamification reduces agent turnover

Perhaps the most important benefit of call center gamification is that it helps reduce agent turnover by boosting morale in call centers.

As mentioned above, call center turnover is a constant challenge for call centers. At the same time, finding new agents is becoming increasingly difficult due to the advanced language skills, long working hours and high flexibility their roles might require.

However, retention is becoming a major pain point as well; agents may lose their motivation and burn out quickly, and many of them look for a new role in a completely different field. Call center gamification can help your agents let off some steam, balancing out the often stressful and hectitc shifts they have.

For example, set a (realistic) target and treat your agents with a small reward, let’s say a work-from-home day once they reach their target. Such rewards will help you create a better atmosphere in which your agents will be inspired to continuously improve in order to receive prizes.

Call center gamification increases agent productivity

Introducing call center gamification into a call center can greatly increase agent productivity by encouraging agents to be more productive and achieve more.

In particular, rewarding agents for a job well done will definitely incentivize them to do better. You can be sure that when agents see how they are performing in comparison to other agents, they will want to try to get to the top of the list.

All you need to do is to introduce some friendly competition to trigger their motivation to be the best in the team. In return, you can, for example, give out coupons or reward the agent of the week/month for their hard work.

Gamification improves the culture of the call center

Call center gamification isn’t only about competition. It can also be used to help create a collaborative atmosphere and create a better work culture.

If you make collaboration the center of call center gamification, you’ll encourage your agents to not only focus on their own benefits, but also on their peers’ success.

Collaboration-based gamification is a great way to add some fun to call center training. You can, for example, create a common knowledge base, and encourage your agents to contribute to it with their own knowledge.

Leveraging gamification to create a sense of community in a call center can definitely increase engagement, as agents become more committed when they feel like they’re all in it together as a team.

Call center gamification improves customer loyalty

Sure, call center gamification is a great way to retain agents, but did you know that you can also use it to improve customer loyalty?

Gamification can help take customer loyalty to new heights, while also giving businesses the opportunity to collect information about their customers.

There are several types of gamification you can use when it comes to customers: for example, you could give out digital badges confirming your customers’ achievements, create avatars to allow your customers to become part of a community, or simply reward them with redeemable points.

When a customer engages with your gamification system, chances are, they will come back and buy more of your products and services.

Boost morale in your contact center

Now that you know the benefits of gamification in call centers, check out some other blog posts on boosting morale in your contact center:

• 3 fun and useful customer service training games
• Fighting call center turnover: How to boost morale in your agent team
• 5 pro tips to retain your best call center agents