Customer service representatives are no strangers to contests and leader-boards, which have long been a motivational mainstay at call centers. Unfortunately these old-fashioned poster-boards aren't the most inspiring type of contest, especially in this digital age. In an industry that is tough enough when you consider the disgruntled phone calls reps take on a daily basis, how do you inspire them to provide the best, most efficient customer service possible in a fun and fulfilling way?
That’s where gamification comes in. Think of it as a new and improved version of the classic, old poster-boards, where instead of updating contest results with a Sharpie marker, you’re able to integrate an exciting competition app, integrated within Salesforce etc, with real time updates, to motivate and incentivize employees to focus on what matters most in customer service. Goals may differ between sales and customer service, but motivational techniques don’t have to.
Following are the 5 Areas where Gamification can improve the quality of the work @ call centers
1) First Call Resolution (FCR): An average call center with 250 customer service representatives can save $234,451 by increasing FCR by just 5%. FCR is the most important metric for measuring cost performance and customer service because there is a direct 1:1 correlation between improving FCR and improving customer satisfaction.
Yet measuring FCR is not as simple as it seems - meaningful data necessarily takes into account several different factors, from getting routed to the correct rep to customers’ demographics. While other tools may miss out on some of this data, gamification systems can do double-duty: motivating representatives to record all of that important information from the initial point of contact by tapping into the competitive nature of the team. Companies are creating contests where in the representatives with the highest number of calls resolved without needing further follow-up receives a reward directly related to his or her team or area of expertise.
2) Average Handle Time (AHT): If an issue has to be solved, it to be resolved as quickly as possible without sacrificing quality. Gamification that rewards agents with points for a first call resolution or based on handle time help get people focused on this critically important metric to improving call center efficiency. Now a days, companies are developing applications that recognize the representatives with the lowest average handle time per month, or the representative with the highest number of calls resolved in less than ten minutes.
3) Coding: High-volume customer service organizations and divisions often use coding systems to differentiate between past issues, identify trends, highlight common incidents and generally organize data. While this information is critical to improving a company, it is often collected half-heartedly due to the dry nature of the work. Companies can create contests where the employees entering the most accurate data in the most categories at the end of each period earns extra vacation hours.
4) Turnover Rates: Call centers are notorious for having high turnover rates, and it’s one of the greatest challenges of the industry. Industry-wide, turnover hovers around 26%, and up to 33% for part time employees. Agents often feel stressed by angry customers and disconnected from the organization since most of their day is spent on the phone without face-to-face interaction with peers. By bringing in real-time contests with high impact leader boards, representatives can put a face to their coworkers and engage with colleagues, strengthening your company culture in a real way. Gamification brings an element of fun to an otherwise boring job and leads to happier employees. Companies create applications and representatives keep these apps easily accessible on the home screen of their computers so that they can have a running tab of their coworkers’ profiles. Encourage out-of-the-box profile pictures to bring a smile to the faces of your reps.
5) Up-selling: A sign of a good service representative is his or her ability to turn a positive service experience, or even a negative one, into a sales lead. If a customer has their question answered or problem resolved quickly, they are more likely to be interested in continuing their engagement in the company. Or, if a customer is dissatisfied with a product but engaged in a positive, constructive conversation with the service rep, there is an opportunity to offer that customer a different product. Agents can hand the client off to a sales representative as an inbound lead and up-sell opportunity. One of the most successful client uses of our gamification product has been using it to motivate salespeople to take a new product to market. This same concept can apply in a call center to support up-selling where your goal may simply be to motivate agents to ask a client if they would like to learn about a new service offering or ask for a referral. Creating friendly competition around it will get everyone rallied around it and spike this new behavior. Rewarding the employees who has the highest dollar value from up-selling with two tickets to your local sports team’s game will help boost up the employees interest.
This is just one application of Gamification. Tweaking old methods with tinge of gamification will definitely bring significant results.!
Sources: http://www.callcopy.com/files/files/whitepapers/callcopy-10-secrets-to-boosting-first-call-resolution.pdf?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonu6nKZKXonjHpfsX56%2BksXq%2BylMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4ATMRmI%2FqLAzICFpZo2FFbG%2ByZf49Q4w%3D%3D
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