Gamification: Valuable new technology or just a new name?
There probably isn’t one successful contact center that doesn’t use some form of motivation to keep their workers focused on the job at hand. Familiar strategies include: bonuses for goals reached by an individual or a team, an electronic “peer pressure” board showing scores for individual callers, time off for good performance, lunch brought in to the most productive team, a night out for the employee and spouse. These activities have been around since the dawn of call centers in the early 70s. Now there’s new technology and a new name—Gamification—for reaching similar goals with less effort and easier tracking of results.
To “Gamify” or Not?
In “Gamification Comes to the Contact Center,” an article appearing in the January 2014 edition of CRM Magazine, author Leonard Klieb states the obvious, “Because disengaged contact center workers have such a negative effect on morale, customer satisfaction, and overall financial health, it is imperative that management regularly takes the pulse of employees and then finds ways to ensure that workers are properly engaged. One way they can do this is with gamification–borrowing from video games the principles of virtual challenges, contests, and quests for the purpose of racking up points, advancing to higher levels, or earning rewards. Gamification can be used as a means to get contact center employees more passionately involved with the companies for which they work.”
Bob Cowen, CRM Magazine “Top Commenter,” gives a layman’s opinion, “Gamification is not new nor is the automation of it….Only recently have these practices been deemed ‘gamification’ and proclaimed the next big thing….The new players are missing the most significant component of gamification. They believe that the game process is the end solution along with badges and social recognition. However, their game processes do not include random intermittent reinforcement. Random intermittent reinforcement is the motivation that keeps already learned activities interesting and exciting. The only thing new about ‘gamification’ is the name and that it’s now being applied in the consumer marketplace.”
Cowen gets some support for his views from University of Hamburg researcher Sebastian Deterding who characterizes the initial popular strategies for gamification as not being fun and creating an artificial sense of achievement.
Wikipedia tells us, Gamification practitioners
What Analysts Think
That customer care environments can be made more competitive and engaging through gamification is validated by analysts. Gartner, in a recent report, called gamification “a powerful tool to engage employees, customers, and the public to change behaviors, develop skills, and drive innovation.” The firm also predicted that by 2015, more than 40 percent of the top companies would be using gamification to transform their business operations.
Badgeville, a provider of gamification technology, reported record growth in the third quarter of 2013. That growth, it said in October, is being fueled by demand from both new customer signings and expanded relationships with existing customers. Roger Woolley, vice president of solutions marketing at Verint, says, “The contact center space is primed for gamification.” LevelEleven, another provider of enterprise gamification and CRM solutions, completed a $2 million venture funding round that it says will be used to meet rising demand from customers, increase sales and marketing efforts, and further product development. Bunchball’s business is also rising sharply. T-Mobile is using Bunchball gamification to motivate its 30,000 customer care agents and retail store associates.
CRM author Klieb predicts, “These early adopters are just the tip of the iceberg for the technology….Companies can use gamification to reward incremental improvements in productivity, such as answering a set number of calls in an hour, reducing average call handling time by a certain percentage, or resolving customer issues without having to escalate calls. They can also recognize employees for improving service quality, as evidenced through customer surveys administered after interactions with agents; for increasing their knowledge through training; for responding to complaints or questions that come in through social media or email channels within a set period of time; or for driving traffic to company knowledge bases or online portals.”
Before You Buy
Oscar Giraldo, Playvox cofounder, suggests that there are eight important things to know before you gamify your call center:
- Have a purpose and clear objective for why to gamify
- Understand your people and what motivates them
- Track the right 3-4 metrics
- Have processes to gamify already in place
- Have call center &/or CRM software that allows easy connection with 3rd party apps
- Invest in company values and culture
- Choose the right platform
- Focus on the long term
He further explains #8 by adding, “Cultivating a high performance culture is something you have to build day to day. Call Centers is not a technology business, it’s a people intensive business that requires a lot of leadership, psychology and management skills to be successful. Data helps you know how your team is performing and processes helps you guide your people to act in different scenarios.”
The Relatively Low Cost
According to the “2013 Employee Recognition Study” by Make Their Day, an employee motivation consulting firm, “For most, a kind word and public recognition go a lot farther than a hefty bonus.” In the study, 70 percent of participants reported being motivated more by recognition and virtual rewards than by financial incentives, such as pay raises, bonuses, or company stock options.
In the same research, formal recognition by peers and supervisors was found to be the top draw. Other common rewards include online badges and titles or access to privileges like special parking spots or free lunches. Only 14 percent identified gifts or financial compensation valued at more than $1,000 as their preferred rewards.
That’s why most gamification solutions offer a leaderboard feature. Freshdesk Arcade, for example, enables businesses to display a leaderboard of top performers in specific categories, such as speed in resolving an issue, accuracy in response, and customer-reported satisfaction scores, as well as the agent with the most overall points as the most valuable player.
Badgeville’s Sims says posting the results to lighted displays where everyone can see them doesn’t hurt, but notes that Web portals with real-time dashboards cost nothing to install and operate and can be just as effective.
The ROI
With most solutions now available in the cloud, gamification apps can also be very affordable, onboarding can be accomplished fairly quickly, and ROI can be achieved in less time than you might think. Products from Bunchball, Badgeville, FreshDesk, and other vendors are software-as-a-service (SAS) platforms that can be easily customized to fit the individual needs of each company. Businesses can track behavior and activities across the Web and mobile devices. Every deployment can have different audiences and goals.
Gamification “offers an easy and effective way for service organizations to engage and focus agents who daily face high volumes of calls and ever-increasing productivity goals…and drive desirable behaviors that help cut costs, keep agents engaged, and improve customer service,” says Joe Fisher, vice president of products at Bunchball.
Check it Out
What matters most in a successful contact center is making the customer happy. If gamification can help agents to stay happier and more focused, then customers will be happier, too. Talk to your VITEC representative to discuss integrating gamification into your contact management system.