Contact Centre White Papers

A series of industry reports on the issues of today from EvaluAgent

Contact Centre Gamification

Its time to level up!
How gamification can help you to boost morale, increase
efficiency and enhance the customer experience

Contents

Introduction

When technology fails your customers

When technology fails your agents

What is Gamification?

The Next Logical Step Contact Centre Gamification

Before you start, make sure that you have

the right building blocks in place

The rules of the game

Who is raising their game?

10

Conclusion

13

EvaluAgent | www.evaluagent.net

Introduction
Does your call centre have a problem?
If you are anything like most of the contact centres that we talk to,
you are likely to be dealing with an issue that just wont go away, and
one that is leading to customer dissatisfaction and agent churn.
Somewhere along the way your contact centre has made the
strategic decision that a new organisational chart and technology
alone are your best options to manage the ever-shifting expectations
of your customers.
But technology and the new team structures arent delivering on
the business case and the very people the change was supposed to
empower are still de-motivated, leading to poor customer service
and disappointing performance.
Low morale and the resulting impact of high staff turnover and
absence is one of the biggest problems the contact centre industry
faces. It impacts every layer of the business and the fundamental
purpose of your operation.
It can feel like youre constantly fire-fighting, in spite of your best
intentions. So how can you break the cycle?
We think there is an answer: Its time to put people at the heart of
great customer service once again. And contact-centre gamification
the application of game-mechanics to customer service to make it
more engaging is one way to achieve that vision.

Low morale and the

resulting impact of high
staff turnover and absence
is one of the biggest
problems the contact centre
industry faces

Jaime Scott
Managing Director, EvaluAgent

Jaime has 17 years experience leading customer service operations and

customer experience improvement teams and programmes for leading UK
brands. As Head of Customer Insight and Improvement at Orange, he established
the organisations first customer experience function and played a leading role
in helping the company to top the JD Power customer satisfaction awards six
years running. As Customer Experience Director at Barclays Bank and Vertex,
he led teams to design and implement enterprise-level contact management and
workforce optimisation solutions for a range of well-known brands including
M&S, Tesco Bank, National Trust, Scottish Power and Selfridges.

EvaluAgent | www.evaluagent.net

When technology fails your customers

The way we communicate is changing fast.
And its a struggle to keep up.
Smartphones, tablets, social networking, instant messaging; the way
we talk to each other has changed massively over the last decade.
And consumers, especially those who have grown up with these new
technologies, want to be able to communicate with businesses in the
same way.
To say the contact centre industry has been left behind would be
an under statement. And this issue is not just affecting customer
satisfaction; its impacting all aspects of the business from agent
motivation through to revenues and the bottom line.
To be fair, many contact centres have made efforts to address the
shift. But in most cases its an efficiency-focused, rather than a
customer-focused approach. Perhaps one of the scenarios on the
right applies to your contact centre?

Technology Challenges
Legacy
Technology
Bolted together legacy technology that is
unable to adequately track and manage
customers attempting to communicate
with you across multiple channels.

OR
New
Technology
New technology brought in to address
the problem, but with the wrong focus;
rather than enable agents to better manage
customers, it attempts to replace agents
with technology. And, by itself, technology
does not do a good job of creating engaged
employees or loyal customers.

Smartphones, tablets, social

networking, instant messaging;
the way we talk to each other has
changed massively over the last
decade.

EvaluAgent | www.evaluagent.net

When technology fails your agents

Not only is technology failing to address the needs of your
customers, it is also contributing to agent dissatisfaction.
Your agents are either not being given the tools they
need to do their job, or someone somewhere has decided
a technology system can do a better job of talking to
customers than they can.

The first thing to understand about these new

technologies is that, be it a smartphone or a social
network, the technology is still just an enabler for
conversations with real people.

Contact centres are driven by metrics, which in itself is

not a negative thing. However, it does become an issue
when managers start viewing their agents as robots and
forget how their emotions and behaviours drive those
metrics.

Your contact centre agents speak to thousands of

customers weekly, or even daily. Even though the cause
of all these new channels of communication is technology,
the modern contact centre must not just be technologycentric, butpeople-centric.

At the end of the day, business success depends on

peoples performance so helping agents to feel valued,
supported and motivated goes a long way towards
achieving your business objectives.

There is a growing body of evidence to demonstrate that

contact centre gamification is a powerful enabler for
creating a truly people-centric contact centre.

According to the Gallup

Employee Engagement Index,
service worker is the only
category of worker less engaged
today than in 2009.

EvaluAgent | www.evaluagent.net

What is Gamification?
Gamification is a relatively new phenomenon in business.
Until very recently, it has only been applied to incentivising desirable
customer actions and behaviours. The theory being that by giving
products and services an element of gameplay, customers will buy
more and remain loyal in order to continue to earn points or badges.
In this capacity, its a simple way of maximising customer loyalty by
enabling customers to enjoy interacting with your business, while
making them feel rewarded and valued for their custom.
To cite a couple of common examples, you may have competed
with friends to check-in to more places or leave more tips on the
location-based social network, Foursquare. Or perhaps youve gained
NikeFuel points while using the fitness brands apps and products to
stay in shape.

Gamification /emfke()n/ noun

The concept of applying game-mechanics
(E.g. points, badges, competition) to nongame environments to make them more
fun and engaging.
Typically used to encourage customers
to engage with a product or service, and
increasingly used to motivate employees.

There is however, a use for gamification beyond marketing and

loyalty, which could potentially bring even greater rewards to your
business

The Next Logical Step Contact Centre Gamification

Gamification is not new to contact centres.
Many of us remember the good old days when there was a
leaderboard on the flip-chart, a wheel of fortune in the corner, and a
star-of-the-day trophy on someones desk.
It may bring a wry smile to your face, but that level of engagement
and fun went a long way to encouraging team-work and making
a difficult and sometimes repetitious job more enjoyable and less
stressful.
However there were two major problems with this approach: it was
almost impossible to maintain fairness and consistency across the
whole team; and it just took far too long to pull all the stats together
and keep those flip-charts updated.
Contact Centre Gamification solves both of these problems in a
single stroke because it is based upon a system-based approach
to recognition and reward. That means fairness and consistency is
guaranteed; while contact centre managers are freed up to spend
time on what should be their highest priority - coaching and training
agents.
And the rewards dont have to be costly far from it, as we will
explain later on.

EvaluAgent | www.evaluagent.net

...the good old days when

there was a leaderboard
on the flip-chart, a wheel of
fortune in the corner, and a
star-of-the-day trophy on
someones desk.

Before you start

make sure that you have the right building blocks in place
The good news is that contact centres actually lend themselves well
to the concept of gamification.
A well-run contact centre is already monitoring lots of metrics. The first challenge is using all of that information to coach,
develop and motivate staff in a way that empowers them to strive for higher levels of performance.

Identify the business outcomes you want to motivate and enhance. There are lots to
choose from so select metrics and targets using a balanced score-card approach:
PEOPLE: Improve employee morale and motivation

Step 1

CUSTOMER: Deliver a WOW customer experience

COSTS: Deliver efficiency savings
VALUE: Generate more revenue

Step 2

Identify and capture accurate data on contact centre activity and

(principally) customer-driven actions and results that are linked to those
business outcomes.

Implement a robust people-management framework:

Feedback performance data in real time to agents and team leaders

Step 3

Use the data to generate specific actions and goals and track improvement
Initiate collaborative coaching sessions with agents to facilitate
improvement.
Implement efficient and effective performance management agreements
and HR processes.

With these building blocks in place, youre ready to start converting all of this activity and data into points the building
blocks of contact centre gamification

EvaluAgent | www.evaluagent.net

The rules of the game

Every good game needs a set of rules to play by,
and contact centre gamification is no different.
Based on our experience, here are the 10 rules we believe will make gamification a success in your contact centre:

1. Think long and hard about the culture you want to create
When it comes to changing behaviour, gamification can be very powerful, so before you start, it is important to think
about the kind of behaviour you want to encourage. This comes back to having the right building blocks in place and
creating a very clear link between people, performance and business outcomes.

2. Enhance, recognise and reward results rather than actions

Actions may speak louder than words, but results mean more than both. Make sure you recognise and reward
the outcomes of actions, rather than the actions themselves. Make sure you dont become prey to the rule of
unintended consequences; for example, if you incentivise agents to close cases, youll get lots of closed cases, but
you may also get lots of customers who are dissatisfied because their queries havent been fully addressed.

3. Focus on improvement and consistency as well as high performance

Gamification in the contact centre should be as inclusive as possible. It is vital to reward consistency and
improvement as well as high achievement. Gamification is about improving performance across the board, not just
for your star performers. In fact, gamifications ability to motivate new starters and under-achievers is one of its
main benefits.

4. Auto-assign points and minimise the manual allocation of points

We know that keeping track of metrics on flip-charts and wallboards can be an administrative headache. So ensure
you have the systems in place to auto-assign points rather than allocating them manually. Aside from minimising the
effort required, automating the allocation of points ensures that recognition is fair and consistent.

5. Minimise the chance of cynical employees gaming the system

We have alluded (in rule 2) to the unintended consequences of rewarding actions rather than results. Unfortunately
one of those consequences can be agents gaming the system. Make sure you set up anti-gaming controls and create
a reward structure that ensures you dont end up incentivising the wrong behaviour.

Gamification in the contact centre

should be as inclusive as possible.
It is vital to reward consistency
and improvement as well as high
achievement.

EvaluAgent | www.evaluagent.net

6. Encourage inclusive, healthy competition

This really goes back to the point about culture, but we cant stress it too much. Competition might seem daunting
to some agents, but by making it transparent, inclusive and healthy, no one has anything to worry about. You can
do this by teaming up your high performers with low performers to encourage peer support and collaboration.
Encourage everyone to work together by creating supporting programmes, and involve agents in coming up with
their own challenges and targets.

7. Include real rewards

As we said earlier, rewards dont have to be expensive, but they do have to have value to the recipient. Think about
rewards that will encourage a more positive culture. A half day off, parking spot closer to the office entrance or
your manager taking your calls for an afternoon can all be great motivators. We have also seen instances where a
written letter of congratulations from a CEO makes a huge difference. Involve the agents too by asking them what
rewards will motivate them.

8. Keep it simple
Like your customers, many of your agents may be at home with the latest technology, but they are quickly going to
lose interest in a system that is difficult to use. A simple and efficient user interface is especially important for those
less tech savvy team members.

9. Make it fun and compulsive, but not distracting

Gamification is meant to increase your agents focus on customer service, not distract them from the task at hand.
By keeping it simple and easy but focussed on results, you can ensure that gamification doesnt become another
gimmick or an additional piece of reporting software that is detracting from your agents focus.

10. Create a people-centric contact centre

This is the most important point. Gamification is a fantastic tool for motivating agents and achieving greater
customer satisfaction, but it is just that: a tool. It will only work if it supports clear operational goals and if your
leadership team embraces it with enthusiasm. Remember for a call centre to be truly people-centric it must
recognise the needs of people, not technology.

Gamification will only work if

it supports clear operational
goals and if your leadership team
embraces it with enthusiasm

EvaluAgent | www.evaluagent.net

Who is raising their game?

A handful of enlightened contact centres are already
introducing gamification principles and reaping the rewards.
NS&I (National Savings & Investments) is one of them. Driven by
a strong and supportive leadership culture, it has achieved some
outstanding performance improvements through higher levels of
motivation facilitated by game-based competition, recognition,
collaboration, and reward.
One of the largest savings organisations in the UK, with over 25
million customers, NS&I outsources its contact centre operation to
international information technology services provider Atos. The
operation employs 260 front-line agents and over 340 back-office
staff in total, in Blackpool, Durham and Glasgow, handling a mix of
inbound and outbound customer service and sales enquiries.

NS&I is one of the largest

savings organisations in the
UK, with over 25 million
customers

Taking it to the next level

Following the successful implementation of a new cloud-based workforce optimisation platform, NS&I and Atos decided
to trial the use of gamification. The system enabled Atos to manage and engage contact centre employees using customerfocused metrics such as quality, first contact resolution, and real-time customer feedback, with a number of systemised
approaches to game-based recognition and reward:

Gamifying & automatically recognising performance

Atos were able to decide the outcomes they wanted to encourage and the rewards for
employees when they achieved them.

Building social reputation

Everyone could access their own tailored personal profile where they could select an avatar,
upload a photograph, view their points-total, achievements and badges as well as follow
friends and colleagues. This level of transparency and personalisation, made it easier to share
learning and understanding of how high performers consistently deliver great service.

Introducing a dose of healthy competition

Agents could team up and challenge their friends to see who could achieve the highest number
of points on a certain outcome. Teaming together high and low performers, proved a very
useful way to informally share best practice and encourage peer support.

10

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Enabling a level playing field

Traditional leader boards can be divisive, but by providing tips on how to gain more points and
assigning agents to clubs competing against colleagues doing similar tasks, Atos was able to
maintain healthy competition and kept everyone motivated to improve their performance.

Building a community
Just like a social media news feed, agents were able to see when colleagues and team members
achieved badges, reached new levels or won challenges. The system allowed agents to
congratulate achievements to make them more visible and follow high performers to gain
inspiration and ideas for improving their own performance.

Gamifying rewards
Employees were able to use their points to bid for a range of prizes, with each auction set up in
a matter of minutes. The gamification control mechanisms ensured the Rewards system never
impacted front-line service levels.

Its made us talk and get to know each

other. I have started to talk to people
who I wouldnt normally chat with.
Mostly about how they are earning
their points in the first place but I have
also made some new friends.

11

EvaluAgent | www.evaluagent.net

Results
Because Contact Centre Gamification is focused on changing behaviour, its
impact is felt almost overnight.

Reduction in Average Handling

Time (AHT) of

Before EvaluAgent Contact Centre Gamification, a trial groups Average

Handling Time (AHT) was typically 3.5% higher than the rest of the operation.
Following go-live, the trial groups AHT is 2.0% lower. Similar changes were
observed with customer satisfaction and adherence metrics.

5.5%

240
Gamification
trial went live

Gamification Trial Agents:AHT

235

Rest of Operation: AHT

230

225

220

215

210

205

200
04-Mar

01-Apr

29-Apr

27-May

24-Jun

22-Jul

The team leader view

Gamification has added a healthy dose of competition, allowing agents to compete across teams or even by site to
improve and maintain performance. They are free to set up personal challenges so they can focus on key areas identified
for improvement, as well as challenging other individuals or groups to do the same. Some might have been hesitant
about that at first but everyone enjoys it now theyre stuck in and its really improved the culture in the contact centres.
My time can now be spent giving the support and direction needed to help agents make the required improvements. The
welcome spin off is that they earn points for doing it so also feel recognised for their efforts. Its now possible for me to
get a complete view of the level of service being offered by my team and offer immediate help to those most in need of it.

Lesley Scott
Team Leader, Atos

12

EvaluAgent | www.evaluagent.net

Conclusion
For a long time the contact centre has looked to CRM technology to provide the answers, spending hundreds of
thousands of pounds along the way and creating some new problems, as well as solving old ones.
Today, true innovation lies in recognising the needs of the people you employ in your contact centre and those of the
customers they are there to serve. We all really do work harder and more effectively when we are valued and your
people management strategy should achieve just that.
Imagine a contact centre where the longest queues were made up of staff eager to join your team and where agent
retention was just not an issue! Gamification can help make this vision a reality.

Imagine a contact centre where the longest

queues were made up of staff eager to join
your team and where agent retention was
just not an issue! Gamification can help
make this vision a reality.

13

EvaluAgent | www.evaluagent.net

About EvaluAgent
EvaluAgent is workforce optimisation and people management software designed
for call centres and back-office operations.
It is cloud-based and offers a suite of modules that can be plugged together in any
combination, with little or no need for integration with your existing systems.
Weve specifically designed the Contact-Centre Gamification module to apply
game-mechanics to a contact centre environment and put people back at the heart
of great customer service.
Get your FREE demo of Evaluagent Contact-Centre Gamification at
www.evaluagent.net/demo

EVALUAGENT
DigitalCity, Bridge St West
The Boho Zone
Middlesbrough
TS2 1AE

www.evaluagent.net
info@evaluagent.net
0800 011 9688