When you have an office full of people all doing similar jobs, competition is a natural outcome. The use of gamification within this environment takes this and makes the most of it, ensuring that the nature of competition becomes a beneficial tool, both for employees and for the company.
Motivation is a key aspect of employee gamification. Environments such as contact centre’s have been using game mechanics for years in order to motivate staff, promote certain behaviour and reach targets. As these game mechanics are becoming more sophisticated, so too are the outcomes of these incentives improving.
Gamification can be introduced in many different ways, simple or complex. Something as easy a leader board system, or as complex as an interactive, real-time dashboard can produce considerable employee engagement and increased customer satisfaction. Gamification may not seem like a serious idea, but it can produce serious business benefits.
To name just a few...
Motivation
Gamification can motivate employees to reach personal targets, especially when presented with incentives. As an extension of this, when implemented correctly, the goals of the individual and the overall goals of the business will overlap. So employees are motivated to succeed, for their company to improve, and for their customers to have a great experience.
Perspective
An important aspect of any form of gamification is the ability to allow employees to see how they’re performing compared to their peers and how their personal performance relates to the company. A complex, real-time system will also allow employees to understand the customer feedback that relates directly to them, and how their treatment of customers affects the organisation as a whole.
Fun & Interactivity
Gamification helps to create an environment that employees want to work in. Why should fun be taken out of a workplace? By encouraging employees to enjoy the work they’re doing and have fun whilst working, you are encouraging them to reach targets and stay engaged. Happiness is contagious, and happy employees are much more likely to pass this on to customers through a great experience.
Not to mention the three C's...
Connections
These are connections on two levels, both of equal importance, and both supporting each other. Firstly, it allows your employees to make inter-office connections, encouraging them to interact with those around them, and create a strong company community. Sharing achievement and creating connections allows employees to learn about the strengths of those around them, and use this to their advantage. The other half of this is creating better customer connections. Hearing customers talk about their experience in their own words is much more likely to make employees want to work harder for them and make the experience they provide even better.
Collaboration
Gamification can allow and encourage teamwork, which can create countless benefits for the company overall. The idea of 'not wanting to let the team down' means that your teams will encourage each other to work to their best level, and employees’ personal targets are put into perspective against those around them.
Allowing teams to compete against each other can also be a great way to encourage employees to make the most of the varied skill sets within their teams and work together to reach their targets.
Competition
Healthy competition urges people to work at their best, especially when it’s being encouraged through personal incentives. Gamification introduces fun and friendly competition, whilst encouraging employees to do their best in order to stand out from the rest in delivering a great customer experience.
Inter-office games, leagues and charts are no new concept and in the past few years, gamification has, in many ways, been the miracle solution that has failed to deliver in quite the way it was predicted to. Having said this, the strategies and principles behind employee gamification are proven to be effective, both on a personal and professional level.
As with anything, the strength of the outcome relies heavily on the strength of the system, meaning an employee centric design, with real-time customer feedback and fun, interactive elements makes gamification a relevant and positive addition to an office determined to provide a great customer experience.
Want to find out more about how you can use gamification to improve your customer experience? Watch the On Demand presentations from our CX Day Event: Build a Great Customer Experience:
