6 easy call center gamification tips for serious motivational boosts

Effective call center gamification requires careful planning. These six tips will help you to ensure that your gamification both drives sales and improves agent motivation.

Call center gamification is a widely used method for increasing agent motivation, driving sales and decreasing churn. Done correctly, gamification lifts the team spirit of your operation and supercharges your agent’s motivation.

6 effective call center gamification tips

Call center games require quality planning. It helps to use specific call center gamification software, such as LeadDesk’s Superstars, that does a significant chunk of the planning for you. When you have the software side covered, you can concentrate on the strategic and motivational aspects that your agents require in order to be successful.

Let’s discuss six vital gamification areas that can be the decisive factor between failure and success.

1) Gamify the right metrics and KPIs

You should always turn to your call center operational data when deciding on the metrics to gamify. Gamification in general can improve motivation, but if you want to reap the full benefits of motivational games, you should harness your agents’ energy for the most important strategic areas of your operation.

The games can include metrics such as:

• revenue
• scores in a certain campaign
• calls made in a certain time period
• scheduled meetings
• call-backs.

2) Visualize progress in real time

To create a sense of urgency that motivates your agents, ensure that everyone knows the real-time score at every turn. Set up a digital scoreboard that visualizes the progress the teams and agents are making. It’s good to include several milestones on the path to the ultimate goal to keep progress constant and inspiring.

3) Level the playing field

Few people really enjoy a game where you already know the winner before the game starts. With gamification, there is a risk that your best agents take the cake while new agents go home empty-handed.

You should usually include at least three elements to call center games:

• skill
• chance
• activity.

When chance plays a role, the best agents don’t automatically win, which keeps the game interesting. Rewarding activity levels the playing field further, encouraging both experienced agents and newcomers to do their best.

With a gamification software, such as LeadDesk’s Superstars, you can also assign individual goals that motivate agents to learn new skills through additional prizes. Coaching agents to learn skills that are neither too hard nor too easy to reach supports them in making steady progress.

Plan the games in a way that suits the current environment and doesn’t make the participants stressed or uncomfortable. The result should be a healthy competition where previous merits don’t matter as much as enthusiasm, progress and activity.

4) Don’t forget teamwork

One of the greatest strengths of call center gamification is its potential for improving team spirit. Besides individual games, consider creating games where teams compete against each other.

Mix different experience levels and skill sets in the teams. This way your new agents learn effective sales strategies from more experienced players. Having mixed skill sets inside a team pushing for a common goal makes the skills trickle down to other members.

5) Provide motivating prizes

You should offer your agents prizes that are motivating enough, in both short and long term. For short-term motivation, offering free lunches or more freedom in working hours might work well. For larger, long-term targets go for more substantial rewards, such as hotel stays or days off.

6) Add depth with higher causes

Not every call center game has to be about personal gain. Adding an element of common cause to your gamification can bring more meaning. Letting your agents vote on the charity they’d like to donate to gives them control over their own work and enables them to work in a way that promotes their own values.

The time to start call center gamification is now

Haven’t tried call center games yet? You might be surprised by the effects they have on agent motivation and sales. LeadDesk’s Superstars add-on makes gamification so easy there’s no reason not to try. You can also try LeadDesk for free.

Wondering what games to try first? Read our blog on five proven call center games that drive your sales like never before.