The trend towards creating a more engaging work culture is gaining force. Here’s why Call Center managers should pay attention.
Employee engagement is key to growing any business. Engaged employees are more motivated because they feel connected to organizational goals and progress. In short, engagement adds value. But how do you improve engagement? To start, workplace culture has an important impact on employee motivation. Companies that work to create an engaging culture are able to lower turnover rates, provide better service, and even increase sales and profit margins. Nevertheless, some industries such as call centers have lagged behind on the engagement curve.
On average, according to the Quality Assurance and Training Connection (QATC), US call centers have a turnover of 30% to 45%.
This is more than double the average for all other occupations in the country. Turnover costs for a call center of about 50 employees can amount to more than $100,000 yearly including the cost of recruiting, hiring, and training new employees.
Call center employee engagement is often seen as a challenging issue due to traditionally low job satisfaction, lack of development opportunities, and limited salary aspirations.
Furthermore, as a younger generation moves into the workforce, expectations are changing dramatically. For this reason, investing in creating an engaging work culture is so important as call centers look to evolve for the future.
Why Call Centers Are Investing in Gamification
In an attempt to create a better work environment, call centers are increasingly considering gamification as a possible solution to the problems of low employee engagement.
If low employee engagement comes from a lack of personal investment in daily activities. Gamification may be a uniquely effective way to address this issue.
According to the 2018 TalentLMS Gamification at Work Survey, employees find gamification makes them feel more productive (87%), more engaged (84%) and happier (82%) at work. Furthermore, 85% of employees say they would spend more time on gamified software.
By establishing a gamification-based strategy, employers can:
- Establish a more dynamic culture, that incentivizes improvement with recognition.
- Advance healthy competition and collaboration that encourages employees to contribute actively to team goals.
- Increase accountability with consistent feedback and recognition.
- Improve data quality by engaging employees with their own performance metrics.
Management Strategies and Gamification in Call Centers
Changes in employee expectations have made traditional management strategies increasingly less effective. Quarterly assessments and impersonal measurements and quotas no longer live up to employees’ desire for personal investment and growth. Data visibility is key to evolving management strategies. A survey by the Harvard Business Review reveals that 70% of employees are most engaged when leaders share data on company strategies.
Gamification is a powerful tool, but it is most effective paired with data-driven management strategies with the following elements.
- Setting goals and effective ways to measure progress. Up-to-date information driven by company collected data allows managers and employees to keep a close eye on results. They can also measure the impact of any changes made and track progress of specific projects and goals.
- Providing consistent and personalized feedback. By having reliable and up-to-date information for individuals and teams, managers can provide more personalized feedback for employees.
- Improving engagement and motivation. Greater data visibility can improve employee motivation by providing consistent measures of performance.
- Recognizing and celebrating achievements. Employees want to feel responsible while also valued by both their peers and their managers. By keeping track of results and setting goals, achievements become clearer and can be recognized.
How Leaderboards can Improve Employee Engagement
Leaderboards traditionally have been used as a form of basic gamification for sales teams across many industries. Hurrah! Leaderboards uses modern technology to take this solution to another level of gamification and live data visualization.
Real-time data broadcasting
Data visibility is the name of the game with leaderboards. Digital Leaderboards solutions allow automatic updating from CRM data so you can broadcast metrics like:
- Caller satisfaction rates
- Up-selling opportunities won
- First call resolution rate
Employees are more engaged with their activities and results because they can see their performance and goals broadcasted live. You can even create contests among teams or agents to encourage teamwork and camaraderie.
Instant Acknowledgement
With Hurrah! Leaderboards, companies can instantly recognize employees achievements, and celebrate with the whole team.
Everything in One Place
Not only does Hurrah! provide automatic digital leaderboards, it offers loads of other great features for sharing news, messages and reports.
To try Hurrah! risk free for your call center team Sign up for a Free Trial Today!
Originally published on CRMGamified blog by CRMGamified
