Question:
Can gamification be used for work-at-home (WAH) agents?
Answer:
The forced migration of on-site contact center employees to work-at-home agents has renewed interest in employee empowerment tools. Gamification solutions are designed to improve “connectedness” for agents working at home, and to enhance engagement for employees performing their job in a physical contact center setting. These applications are intended to enhance team-building, promote use of knowledge base and eLearning content, encourage peer-to-peer mentoring, and recognize and reward agents who perform an essential and often difficult job for an enterprise.
The benefits of gamification solutions go far beyond the crucial need to enhance employee engagement. These solutions provide a framework for operationalizing and incentivizing KPI-based achievements using the metrics that matter most to the contact center and the enterprise. In doing so, they deliver benefits for all constituents; they motivate employees who appreciate timely feedback on their performance and enjoy rewards and recognition. This, in turn, drives a better service experience for customers, which improves enterprise profitability and brand. And, in today’s WAH contact center environments, these solutions are also being used to improve oversight and management of employees.
In addition to supporting game mechanics for various types of challenges and contests, and delivering virtual and/or tangible rewards, gamification applications frequently include online community features similar to social media sites like Facebook or Twitter. This functionality allows employees to establish an online identity in the workplace and provides an internal communication channel that enables coworkers to interact with each other, challenge teammates to compete in one-on-one or group contests, request peer coaching and more. The social aspects of gamification solutions are especially beneficial for boosting camaraderie and mitigating the feeling of isolation for agents who are working remotely and no longer have daily face-to-face interactions with their peers.
While all the details about the “new normal” contact center are unknown, it is safe to say that WAH agents will be an important part of these operations moving forward. As the novelty of WAH wears off and contact center leaders look for ways to further enhance employee engagement for on-site and remote agents alike, gamification is expected to play an increasingly vital role.