Comprehensive Guide to Gamification in Customer Service

Superior customer service can be a key driver of business growth. Companies like Amazon and Zappos owe much of their early success to having outstanding customer service, and organizations that put their customers first – including by giving them the best service possible – are more likely to be successful. 

Research from Bain & Company shows that increasing customer retention rates by as little as 5% can lead to an increase in profits of between 25% and 95%.  

With 90% of consumers citing customer service as a key factor in deciding whether to purchase from a company, improving this area is crucial. But how? The answer is gamification in customer service.  

Gamification in customer service has emerged as a critical way to improve your customer service offering. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at what it is, gamifying the call center workflow, examples of successful implementation, and some tips to help you get started.  

What is gamification in customer service? 

Gamification in customer service is when customer service agents are provided with gamified experiences that make them more engaged, enthusiastic, and effective.  

Customer service gamification leverages elements from the world of gaming-as-entertainment, to provide these meaningful experiences. This can take the form of earning points, unlocking new levels, leaderboards, badges, and more.  

Advantages of gamification in a call center 

There are many advantages to incorporating gamification in customer service in a call center. These advantages include:  

Empowering agents Help call center agents with gamified goals, personalized microlearning, guided performance feedback, and other tools to slash handle times, boost resolution rates, increase upsells, and turbocharge customer satisfaction.  

Aligning teams Gamification in customer service can be used to rally individuals and teams around company goals, especially when the workforce is distributed. 

Increasing motivation Tools like leaderboards, immersive story-based narratives, points, and badges can be used to motivate and reward employees and encourage the right behaviors.  

Tackling attrition With more motivation, engagement, fun, and non-threatening, healthy individual and team competition, agents are likely to stay longer and be more invested.  

Accelerating time to proficiency Gamification in customer service, when provided by market leaders, has been shown to dramatically reduce the time from onboarding to proficiency and increase return on investment.  

How to gamify the call center workflow? 

There are many ways to gamify the call center workflow. Here are a few to help you get started. 

Implement guided performance improvement 

Leverage performance data across your EX ecosystem to connect gamified KPIs to personalized microlearning and continuous coaching.  

Provide recognition and rewards 

Reward high-performing agents with virtual rewards that can be redeemed for real-life items such as company swag. Give peer and manager kudos, award badges for milestones achieved, and offer points for social knowledge sharing.  

Choose from multiple gamification in customer service options 

These include progressing game narratives and levels, competitions between individuals and teams, and dynamic leaderboards.  

Gamify coaching and feedback 

Strengthen agent-manager relationships and improve coaching sessions by enabling actionable next steps and making it much easier overall to give and receive coaching and feedback.  

Examples of successful gamification in a call center 

A successful example of gamification in a call center is Barona’s use of Centrical to drive increased performance.  

Barona, formerly Ageris, provides private employment and BPO services and operates in 10 countries around the world with over 700 employees. The organization saw that employees wanted feedback more immediately than a monthly meeting. They also wanted to see their goals, and progression towards these goals, more clearly. 

Working with Centrical, the company put goals and achievements in a graphical context. They added a gamified narrative of missions and challenges and switched from cash rewards to a points-based program.  

Thanks to Centrical, employees were provided with microlearning opportunities, with easy-to-digest, bite-sized learnings that are easily absorbed and remembered. They also now had more frequent and focused conversations with their managers. 

In all, the company saw a significant 9% growth in KPI performance thanks to its implementation of the Centrical platform. 

To see Centrical in action yourself, click here. 

Practical tips for implementing gamification in a call center 

Here are some practical tips for implementing gamification in customer service for your company: 

Choose the right gamification method 

With so many gamification options to choose from, it’s important to select the method that will resonate strongest with your employees, and your business challenges. Before embarking on your gamification in the customer service journey, consult with employees in terms of what they would be most excited about.  

Author your own content 

Platforms like Centrical have tons of off-the-shelf content, but authoring your own content is the surest way to achieve your goals faster. Choose from quizzes, learning missions, and other easy-to-author content. Centrical has made creating frontline training content much faster and easier to scale with the AI Microlearning capability.  

Ensure goals and KPIs are clear  

Gamification can help employees achieve their goals faster, but it is up to company leadership to ensure clarity and alignment around goals and KPIs. With this in place, layering gamification on top will result in goals and KPIs being blown out of the water.  

Centrical gamification solution for customer service 

Centrical is the premiere solution when it comes to gamification in customer service. With customers ranging from large multinationals to small and exciting startups, Centrical provides organizations with a holistic WEM with a gamified approach to drive business success. 

For example, Centrical customers see: 

• A 60% reduction in call flow errors 
• An 8% reduction in attrition 
• A 7% increase in voice of customer scores 

Implementing Centrical as your gamification in customer service solution will result in more engaged, motivated, and effective agents – and directly contribute to achieving KPI success. 

Final Thoughts 

Customer service success directly impacts almost all of the major business KPIs that companies want to succeed in – and gamification in customer service has emerged as the key way to boost the customer service function.  

Key learnings included: 

• Investing in customer service improvement leads directly to business success, for example in the form of increased profitability 
• There are numerous advantages and benefits of introducing gamification in call centers, such as increased engagement and motivation 
• One example of implementing gamification in a call center includes the 9% improvement in KPI achievements 
• When implementing gamification in customer service, consider the right gamification method for your business case and company type 
• Centrical has been a gamification solution to drive customer service success for over a decade

Are you ready to change the game for customer service? Learn more about Centrical and how we can help your organization by requesting your personalized overview today!