[Part 1] Why Call Centers Need Gamification Now More Than Ever

In our increasingly virtual world - where we buy furniture online, refinance our mortgage with a few clicks, and resolve our credit card issues over the phone versus stopping by the bank - it should come as no surprise that the call center agent and the customer service rep are becoming critical components of every business. 

For every e-commerce or virtual booking transaction, companies rely on people at the ready to resolve issues and provide (hopefully) incredible customer care. The reason is that as so many of us buy or transact virtually, the experience of any type of support or customer care is one of the few differentiators. 

Personally, as an American Express customer - AMEX has built so much customer loyalty with me because their contact center agents have been phenomenal at solving my problems (so much so that they’ve been able to ‘upsell’ me a few times). 

As our company continues to see more opportunities to serve the contact center and call center leaders - we find ourselves talking about a few key points every time: 

1. Call center gamification drives productivity and motivation

2. KPI visibility in the contact center creates engagement  

3. Call center employees crave support and recognition

4. Better coaching, goal alignment, and manager visibility improve retention

Need more evidence?

At West Corp, Sanjiv Sharma is using Ambition’s gamification functionality to increase call center metric outcomes, resulting in a 18% to 26% lift across multiple sales centers. Find out more here.

Here are the topics of conversation you should think through as you make the decision to invest in gamification for your contact center:

1. Can we track / send the data we care about to a gamification platform?
2. If we could improve productivity or effectiveness by 10-40% per agent, what would it mean for our business or our client’s businesses?
3. What does attrition cost us and do we believe better coaching, recognition, and manager reporting will improve our retention?

In my next post, I'll dive into each of those items. See you there!