Category: Customer Experience

With digital-first experience defining the modern world Freshworks released their report where they outline key trends around business behaviour as well as the consumer. The report focuses on the future of CX in the Middle East and Africa with the goal for businesses to deepen their customer loyalty. Customer satisfaction means quicker responses The report…
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Keeping employees motivated is a challenge in every industry.
In the call center, it can be even more difficult due to the repetitive nature of the job (answering an endless stream of phone calls) and the metrics-based approach used in performance tracking.
Picture it: You are the fearless leader of a call center team. Much like the call centers of old, your agents are grappling with:

Surges in call volume (both expected and unexpected)
Evolving technologies;
Increasingly complex customer cases, and
The latent human desire to be appreciated, acknowledged, and active in the work environment.

During crisis moments where we see spikes in call volume and demanding customers, agents become taxed and frustrated if they feel the infrastructure doesn’t support them or there is no incentive to stick around. Keeping agents engaged is one thing, but keeping them as employees is another.

Top Contact Center Trends in 2022

As a call center manager, the game pieces you must manoeuvre to keep your center, agents, and the overall business infrastructure at the top of their game are vast and varied. And like any good puzzle, managing a call center has a unique set of ever-evolving challenges, attrition being high on the list.
Only a few years ago, call center turnover was as high as 33% and it continues to be an issue. A 2020 Gallup poll showed that just 36% of employees reported feeling engaged with their job. While the source of this startling rate is debatable, call center managers can certainly do their part to strategize how to keep call center agents on the ball.
One strategy employed by many companies is “gamification.” This involves guiding, reinforcing and increasing high-value activity by capturing performance data and using that data to motivate employees. Companies like Spotify and LivingSocial have reportedly replaced traditional reviews with mobile and gamified versions and reported 90% of employees are voluntarily participating in the programs. 

How to Improve Call Center Agent Performance

Gamification builds on the desire most people have for feedback, recognition, and achievement in a peer group. Add to this the potential for rewards (for goal achievement). It’s easy to see why this concept has become so popular, and a big step up from the old days when companies would simply pick an “employee of the month”.
What is Call Center Gamification?
A pat on the back and a paycheque every once in a while will only go so far, so adding game elements into your call-center infrastructure is a possible way of keeping your team motivated and in the game.
Gamification is the introduction of interactive, game-like principles and elements into different contexts. Its usefulness knows no bounds: By adding playful elements such as competition, rewards, and recognition into your call center, it can facilitate, recognize and reward learning, creativity, and social and personal growth.

4 Easy Ways to Make Call Center Training More Fun

Gamification captures agent performance data and uses that data to motivate them with rewards and points. Adding games, scores, virtual badges, and other game-like elements to everyday work processes can make the job more fun.
However, with any trend (or fad) there will be proponents and detractors. Some proponents insist that every job will eventually be gamified, while detractors fear that it’s just another management fad or, worse, a new form of corporate control.
Surprising Statistics About Gamification

By 2016, gamification will be an essential element for brands to drive customer marketing and loyalty.
70% of business transformation efforts fail due to a lack of employee engagement.
According to Gartner, by the end of 2015, more than 40% of the top companies will be using gamification to transform their business operations.
Only 3% of people remain unproductive during gamified training.
The gamification industry is expected to grow to over $2 billion in the U.S. by 2015, according to M2 Research.
According to a report by Aberdeen Research, organizations that deployed gamification have seen their annual revenue grow nearly twice as fast as their peers.
89% of survey respondents claim that if a task is gamified, they feel eager to complete it and are in a competitive mood.
According to Pew Research Center, 53% of people surveyed said that by 2020, the use of gamification will be widespread, while 42% predicted that, by 2020, gamification will not evolve to be a larger trend except in specific realms.
By 2025, the global gamification sales revenue is estimated to reach $32 billion.
70% of the top global enterprises already use gamification in some way.

Benefits of Gamification in the Contact Center
1. It shortens ramp-up times for new employees.
Gamification improves the process for providing real-time feedback at every step of the training process, allowing trainees to advance more quickly. Accordingly, onboarding time can be significantly reduced. That’s a big plus for an industry that experiences a lot of employee churn.
2. It allows employees to know how they’re doing.
The approach of gamification provides real-time feedback for employees- how they’re performing in relation to co-workers, and how well they’re achieving their own goals. Employees will always know where they stand.
3. It gives managers a better way to incentivize employees.
When employees are aware of their own performance, they can be more readily encouraged to meet new targets. In this way, managers can use more “carrot” and less “stick” in motivating their staff.
4. Incentives can be automated, and customized.
Gamification automates the process of setting goals and running contests for employees, offering this functionality in a broader platform that can be tailored to meet the specific needs of different teams and individuals.
5. It encourages sharing and mentoring.
By sharing performance data among a community of peers, a collaborative approach emerges in which employees share knowledge and best practices, and work together to solve mutual challenges. The net result is a positive increase in the knowledge level of all employees, something that’s an enormous benefit to any call center!
The Downsides of Call Center Gamification
As with any technology or process, there are just as many cons to gamification in the contact center.
1. Unhealthy competition
Gamification tools like leaderboards can negatively impact company culture. They highlight weaker employees just as much as they do your best agents. It is critical to set clear guidelines for how management takes action on gamification results to avoid demotivating your employees. Rewarding and training should be key, not reprimanding and punishing lower performers.
2. Unnecessary gamification
Once the power of gamification has been proven out, there is often a temptation to apply it everywhere — even in situations where it is not appropriate or ineffective.
The reasons behind gamifying a process or task should be carefully considered and tied back to the overall business objectives. Gamification is not best used for tedious tasks that employees already struggle to complete, as this can have a negative impact.
Be strategic in your application of gamification techniques and avoid the temptation to gamify everything just to get it done. If a task is so boring or challenging that employees don’t want to do it, address that issue through other ways, not through incentives or leaderboards.
3. Forced play isn’t play
Fun and games are voluntary by nature. Some people have pointed out that forcing employees to play games is still work, when it’s done around work and in a workplace. When companies demand that employees play their ‘games,’ they very quickly fail.
To avoid this, ensure that any gamification is voluntary and that employees can opt-out without punishment.
4. Games are played to death
Eventually, all games lose their fun. The longer a game runs, the less engaging and the less fun it will be for your support agents. No matter how exciting and rewarding a game is when it starts, the novelty and allure wear thin after a few weeks at most.
Gamification is best used for short-term or ‘sprints’  to boost productivity over a short space of time, or for periodic, seasonal promotions. Giving a few months ‘breathing’ room between games can revitalize your employees and make the games something to look forward to instead of dread.
Your call center should consider gamification if:

Your agents are having trouble adapting to a new technological solution in your call center and they need to study up (and fast);

Your agents are burning out and employee turnover is at a historic high;

Your agents seem lethargic, disengaged, and are calling in sick more than usual;

Customer complaints about poorly-trained or unresponsive agents are at a historic high;

You want a clearer understanding or microscopic snapshot of how engaged your call agents actually are; and/or

You have new employees who need to meet the team and train your company and their roles, and fast!

 Gamification can potentially:

Lower call center employee attrition;

Boost agent productivity;

Increase your own productivity;

Improve upon a flawed or outdated training model;

Encourage more well-trained, educated agents (something both your agents and customers will appreciate);

Improve customer service and experience via interactions with more well-trained, pleasant agents;

Motivate your team to set high goals (or even vie for promotion) via healthy competitions;

Encourage creativity;

Provide a way of assessing your call center agents’ performance; and

Vastly enhance the culture of your call center and improve the overall perception of your business.

 
And always remember:
As a call center manager, anything that benefits customers, agents, and the overall infrastructure benefits you.
 The post The Manager’s Guide to Call Center Gamification first appeared on Fonolo.

With blockchain, NFTs, and the metaverse growing in popularity it is making way into Web 3.0. The previous versions (Web 1.0 and Web 2.0) came to be slowing and in stages. Therefore, it would seem that Web 3.0 is on course to do the same. This article is a continuation of “What’s the real impact…
The post What changes will Web 3.0 bring to CX: a comprehensive guide appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

Wisdom announced its Digital Customer Experience Series – Europe edition, to be held virtually on 20 – 21 April 2022 and CXM is pleased to support this event as a media partner.   The event will explore the changing customer expectations in the European market with experts and senior representatives from top organisations across the world….
The post Wisdom’s digital CX series will be held in April: get your discount today!   appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

There are over 6,500 different cryptocurrencies, all varying in size of market capitalisation, which have different followings and trading volumes. Some of these are meme coins that have a supporting business model flimsier than a house of cards.  However, the vast majority are new technologies being created that will disrupt practically everything we know and do in…
The post How blockchain could solve the advertising sector’s challenges appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

It’s frustrating for anyone who leads.

If everyone who says that they’re a contributor/member/supporter/fan/long-term customer showed up, huge things would happen.

So we spend a lot of time hustling to get the lurkers to take action. Post again! Create more incentives! Dumb it down! Most of all, focus on creating urgency.

This isn’t how progress actually happens.

The 95% who lurk will almost always lurk. That’s okay.

The place to focus is on the 5%. Because when their persistent, consistent and generous action begins to add up, change happens. And that brings the lurkers along. It might even activate them. They’ll catch up when they need to.

There’s nothing wrong with lurkers. Lurkers are potential action-takers.

For now, though, our focus, our energy and our gratitude is for the people who are already showing up.

One of the defining workplace themes of 2021 was the Great Resignation. Employees started leaving their jobs at record rates, with 4.3 million people quitting in September 2021 alone. Shortly after, many employers began forecasting a focus on retaining talent, the likes of which had never been seen before in the corporate world.    As the…
The post Facing the truth: customer support agent turnover rate is constantly increasing  appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

Is cheaper better?

Is profit the only thing to be maximized?

For its first decade, Federal Express embraced customer service as a marketing tool. They were competing with the postal service, but more than that, they were trying hard to create a habit that turned 25 cent deliveries into $20 deliveries, particularly among businesses.

They answered the phone on the first ring.

They hired people who cared about the customer experience and gave them tools to keep their promises.

They sacrificed short-term profits in order to build a brand promise that people could trust.

Some organizations end up ingraining this ethos deeply into what they do, and stick with it for the long haul. They have a hospitality mindset. Service isn’t simply the tool to make profits–it’s a key part of why you’re here in the first place.

In the last decade, Fedex (simply to pick a familiar example, they’re by no means unique) decided to take a different path.

They don’t answer the phone easily. When they do, they box their low-paid workers in with scripts and policies that leave little room for human engagement. They remove less profitable dropboxes, and shorten the hours they do pickups. When a package goes awry, they do little to repair the broken trust it creates. I’m sure a McKinsey consultant ran the numbers on all of these changes.

All of these steps add up to slightly more profit in the short run. And, perhaps, over time, people who really care (the difficult customers?) switch to another provider. But the real cost here is to their people, their mission and the culture they seek to build.

Hospitality is a choice, not simply a tactic.

It’s possible to build an organization that does work you’re proud of, surrounded by people who feel the same way. People who care, solving problems and creating connection.

Do you remember all the elements you didn’t used to notice?

It might be the way you see typography now, or the tuning of an orchestra. Or the alignment in the mouldings of a house you’re inspecting or the way an engine sounds… (or whether you put a ‘u’ in moulding)

Expertise is about learning new ways to notice.

Often, once we learn to see, we assume we’ve always known. And that allows us to believe that the things we can’t see, we’ll never be able to see.

But it doesn’t work that way unless we get complacent.

There’s always something just below the surface, the elements that most people simply don’t notice. But we can if we choose.

Lock-in persists. That’s why it’s so valued by monopolists, tyrants and cults.

The ability to speak up always creates inefficiency. It’s easier to just shut up and drive. Or be driven.

But the ability to speak up is a self-cleaning algorithm. Our freedom to move on, to criticize and to suggest creates the conditions for the system to improve.

It’s tempting to sign up for the one with lock-in. It often comes with bonuses, inducements and the promises of efficiency and dominance.

But it’s not resilient. When the world changes, and it always does, open systems are far less brittle than their shiny counterparts.