For many business executives trying to figure out how they can improve their team’s productivity, gamification may offer a viable solution. The term “gamification” may be familiar to many of you, yet you still may be unclear on what it exactly is and how you can incorporate it into your business’s activities. So, let’s start with the basics and work our way from there.
What is gamification?
In a nutshell, gamification is taking a mundane, everyday activity and incorporating game mechanics into it to make the activity more engaging.
Now, let’s breakdown that definition:
• a mundane, everyday activity:
Almost any activity, regardless of what it is, can be gamified. That being said, it has to be pointed out that gamification doesn’t create new activities; it only modifies existing ones in order to make them more fun and stimulating.
• incorporating game mechanics:
Having played several games as kids, we are all aware of the fundamental mechanics of games, even if it is only subliminally. The idea behind gamification is to take these core components behind most games and include them in an activity.
What are the main game mechanics?
1. Transparency:
Players need to be aware of the rules of the game as well as what it takes to win or lose. If the rules are unclear, players will lose interest quickly.
2. Goals:
When gamifying an activity, you want to make the desired behavior be the goal the players pursue, and when players get closer to achieving the goal you set for them, they are rewarded.
3. Fast feedback:
Be it as points, badges, or something else, a game has to give its players instant feedback, thus engaging them and making them want to play on.
4. Points:
In order to keep track of how well players are doing, you need to have a point system that rewards the targeted behavior and penalizes unwanted behavior. Accordingly, a player will get instant feedback on their actions, letting them know where they stand along with what they can do to improve their score.
5. Badges:
Another form of rewarding the player is the use of badges, which can be given when the player accumulates a certain number of points or when they do some other impressive feat that won’t earn them any points. For instance, some sites offer their users badges when the users log in to the site seven days in a row.
6. Competition:
It’s not enough for players to know how many points they have; for them to be truly engaged, they need to know how they are doing compared to other players. Not only does this bring in the social aspect of gaming, but it also gives the top winners bragging rights, which is an extra reward. You can incorporate competition into your game through the use of leaderboards, for example.
7. Community:
Seeing as we are all social beings, one of the best ways games can engage their players is by building a community, one that fosters relationships between its members and allows them to connect. Many sites, such as Reddit or Facebook groups, are built on establishing a community whose members can have unique interactions with one another.
8. Levels:
People love the feeling of achievement, but they also want to feel that they’ve earned it. So, when making a game, you should reward players who put in an effort by allowing them to level up and have access to certain things that they weren’t able to reach before.
9. Onboarding:
Upon starting a new game, players need to be introduced to the game, its rules, and everything else. We know this as onboarding.
How can call center gamification help my employees?
I’m glad you asked. When your employees are highly engaged, they outperform their less engaged counterparts by 147 percent. Also, better-engaged employees exhibit an average of 45 percent less turnover and 37 percent fewer absences.
6 ways how call center gamification can boost your employees’ productivity
1. Better teamwork
Given that a core game mechanic is a community, it should not surprise you to learn that gamification helps you build a collaborative environment where social connections are established in order to come one step closer to achieving goals.
2. A higher rate of referrals
Happy employees are bound to refer you to their friends and family, making your job of hiring new staff easier. You can gamify the referral process, which motivates employees to take an even more active role.
3. Lifting your employees’ spirits
One of the biggest problems with any job is how monotony sets in at some point. After all, most jobs get repetitive, setting the stage for boredom to creep in. However, if you take the same task and inject a little fun into it, the entire process can be more enjoyable.
4. Gets employees to want to better themselves
Call center gamification helps your employees grow in two ways: On the one hand, breaking down long-term goals into a series of small, achievable tasks, helps your employees plan better and think in a more strategic fashion. On the other hand, by creating an environment where good behavior is rewarded with points, we will encourage employees to seek ways to maximize the number of points they accumulate by increasing their efficacy in any task. Over and above, you can gamify the training sessions you offer your employees.
5. Increases sales
A study once found that when people are put in a competitive situation, they enhance their performance several times over when compared to when they aren’t competing with anyone. And, this makes sense, seeing as nobody enjoys ending up in last place.
6. Fires up your employees’ imagination
In brainstorming sessions, it’s normal for some employees to be more engaged than others. Yet, when you sprinkle a touch of gamification with a pinch of rewards over the whole thing, what you get is a fresh setting where employees will be much more willing to contribute and find creative ideas that’ll help your business.
Can call center gamification help your customers?
With gamification, you can offer your customers a better experience, making them want to come back for more. You can increase engagement across your social media, which should up your website traffic. In fact, when a brand engages its customers, it can expect customer attrition to go down by 63 percent and the share of wallet to go up by 55 percent.
So, with that in mind, here are a few ways you can use gamification to your advantage:
1. Get new customers using contests, giveaways, and rewards
One way you can attract new customers is to resort to offering them a reward of sorts for making their first purchase with you or for referring a friend. Alternatively, you can hold a contest that entices people to play, and you can give the winner a covetable prize.
2. Educate your customers with games
Often, learning about the services offered by a company is a dry, boring process that can have the most interested customers’ eyes start rolling over. However, this doesn’t have to be the case for you: You can gamify the education process and let your customers enjoy the whole thing. Over and above, you could offer a reward for those who end up winning the game.
3. Market your products using games
One way you can get the word out about your products is to promote them with a fun game that gets customers excited.
4. Reward your loyal customers
The simplest and most antiquated form of rewarding customers is offering them loyalty points. However, you can go a few extra steps and come up with a few schemes that’ll keep them coming back for more: You can create something similar to a scavenger hunt where your customers have to find the deal of the day. Alternatively, you can come up with a lottery system that rewards your customers with valuable prizes.
How to make your call center gamification effective?
1. Let the games be simple and winnable
One of the fastest way players lose interest in a game is if that game is prohibitively hard to play. Therefore, if you want your customers to get the most out of your gamification efforts and come back for more, make sure that some of them win.
2. Let your games be mobile
People are using their smartphones more and more these days, which is why you want to make use of this trend and make sure your games are accessible via a smartphone.
3. Make the most of social media
Social media is a powerful tool that allows people to share the things that interest them and grab their attention. Hence, people who get high scores in your games will have a powerful incentive to share your brand with their friends and family.
4. Pay more attention to the game rather than to the prizes
At the end of the day, if your game isn’t fun, people will not play it, regardless of the prize you might be offering. Conversely, if your game is fun but the prize isn’t that big of a deal, people will still play it all the same. Therefore, focus on your game and the experience it offers.
5. Have a few celebrities involved in your game
Seeing as games build communities, people will be much more excited about joining the community surrounding your game if a celebrity they like is also part of it.
How Ansafone Contact Centers can help your business?
Ansafone Contact Centers is an award-winning BPO provider with 50 years of world-class customer experience and brand care. We are a national call center with omnichannel services, fully equipped to help you with your business and with any special circumstances.
Please request a quote or call 800-510-0514 to learn more about how you can benefit from outsourcing a call center and how we can improve your business. We’re happy to offer insight into what your customers seek from your company’s language offerings and tailored customer solutions.
