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Working as a frontline employee, in a sales or service contact center is one tough job. As self-service and alternative support channels become increasingly common, customers’ expectations from contact centers have become much higher. As a result, voice calls have become an escalation channel, making for challenging work.

This, together with profound changes in how contact center agents connect when working hybrid, think about their roles and manage their careers, require operations managers to act. Yet the actions managers need to take aren’t obvious – they need to influence agent motivation, focus, and how they feel about the culture of the company. At the same time, the way that frontline managers interact with their direct reports also needs to be addressed. Employees expect more manager feedback, recognition, and a sense of belonging.  

Motivation Science, gamification, and digital culture can all help. Let’s see how.

Workforce Engagement and Digital Culture

The relationship between humans and the technology they use to communicate is changing our culture. Social media is just one example of how people relate to one another through technology, and the changing customs and etiquette brought about by the dominance of digital engagement.

The workplace is also undergoing a big change through digital culture and the collaboration apps used by companies to communicate with employees. Think of messaging apps, like Slack or Microsoft teams. These tools don’t just speed up work, they change corporate culture and impact the employee experience. In some cases, such as Slack, they also include automation (Slackbots) that communicate with other apps and bring more information to users. These new tools break up hierarchies, drive information transparency, and change how managers and peers communicate about recognition. In fact, the way these apps are used has a deep impact on how employees experience work, culture, and their sense of belonging.

While knowledge workers are forming new digital cultures through messaging apps, what is digital culture offering to frontline employees? Usually, not much. While these employees interact with enterprise applications throughout the day, the tools aren’t impacting culture, since they aren’t present as a part of the human interactions at work. There is no “public space” to celebrate as a team or to encourage coaching. No place to consume learning or reflect on performance in real-time, receive coaching guidance, and more. Even when messaging and culture are there, there is no automation, making for great differences between different managers and their personal styles, thus making it more difficult to drive change.

Yet, a new breed of tools go after an all-in-one digital engagement experience for the frontline employee. These tools form a digital culture. They begin with a reflection on performance, which is proven to grow intrinsic motivation, working like a fitness tracker for work (with ordinary fitness trackers, the mere act of counting steps creates powerful motivation to walk more). Surrounding this with additional activities – micro-learning, recognition, sharing learning insights, coaching and automated messages from managers can drive a digital culture at work, a culture of engagement and motivation, transparency, and a celebration of success.

Motivation science and gamification

Daniel Pink’s excellent book, “Drive,” addresses the question of what needs to happen to create lasting motivation. In the book, Pink sets out a new vision for workplace motivation. The starting point for Pink’s research is that there needs to be a move away from a culture of reward and punishment. The book cites research by psychologists Harry Harlow and Edward Deci that showed that rewards can fail to improve people’s engagement with tasks, and may even damage it. In 2017 a similar study was carried out at MIT, finding the same things.

In the book, Pink argues that the traditional “carrot and stick ” method for motivation is outdated. This is what he called “extrinsic motivation.” Intrinsic motivation is what the future is about – where people are self-motivated because they feel free to do the work they care about. Intrinsic motivation is more stable and lasting – it’s what usually marks exceptional employees.

Pink mentions three components of intrinsic motivation: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

  • Autonomy is the sense of directing your life and work. Motivation is created when you feel that you control what you do and how you do it. By rethinking traditional ways of control – for instance, how performance goals are communicated and managed – employees can feel more autonomy in their work. 
  • Mastery is the feeling that you have potential and the desire to improve. Just like an athlete wants to improve, regardless of the awards, but through internal motivation, employees can also be driven by a need to continually improve and do better. 
  • Purpose is the sense that you’re working towards something bigger that’s worth investing in. When someone believes they are working towards something bigger than themselves, they will work harder and better and feel more satisfied.  

Digital engagement and gamification can and should be used to drive a sense of autonomy, by showing employees their performance metrics, while driving learning to promote a sense of mastery and control. Purpose can be infused through recognition and coaching, all contributing to the employee’s motivation and sense of well-being.


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The importance of intrinsic motivation 

Traditionally, call centers use cash (or cash equivalent) bonuses to drive agent performance. While employees will be happy to receive these bonuses, they are extrinsic rewards. Cash doesn’t create a sense of emotional connection with your workplace or goals. Behavioral science research shows that extrinsic rewards, such as cash and competition, don’t work well. Conversely, an internal (intrinsic) sense of achievement is a much better long-term driver of behavior. 

Moreover, most cash-based bonuses apply over a period of a month, meaning that there is nothing to drive behavior on the day-to-day level when the end of the shift is close and the agent doesn’t feel like putting in the extra effort.  

The alternative is intrinsic motivation and daily engagement with goals. Using engagement mechanisms from the world of gamification, proven to work through motivation science, we can create additional layers of motivation beyond monetary incentives. For example, we can give daily goals that will encourage employees to take those last few calls at the end of the shift. By engaging with personal goals instead of just cash, motivation is kept for a longer period of time. Gamification can also be added on to drive additional learning, manager coaching, and recognition.  

An alternative to extrinsic motivation 

Many contact centers run some type of competition. In many scenarios, this type of activity does the opposite of what it’s supposed to. It alienates middle performers, who feel they can’t do well against the people at the top of the leaderboard. Most certainly it hurts the motivation of bottom performers who may have had some rough days at home, or are new employees that still haven’t hit their stride. 

There is one competition that does work – just like a fitness tracker at work. It involves competing against oneself.  Instead of having employees compete against each other, employees can compete against themselves, such as their (personalized) goal, their historical results, or their team average. The effect is similar to using a fitness tracker, and it creates motivation for the long run. 

It is important to personalize challenges – This involves setting goals and challenges that fit employees’ performance profiles. To do this, employees are grouped into segments, receiving different goals and activities. 

Real-time performance feedback 

Contact center managers don’t give enough feedback. If they do, team managers usually base it on casually listening in on conversations. This leaves employees starved for recognition and direction. If an employee isn’t doing well, it takes them too long to understand it – there are few opportunities for real-time course correction. This is opposite to our experience on social networks, where feedback is constant and very rewarding. 

The alternative is real-time feedback on goals. Using digital engagement employees can receive immediate feedback on how they are doing, like a customized scorecard, where they can see their overall goals and what they can do to move them. Each employee can see how they are doing about their goals and benchmarks in real-time. This means employees are incentivized to give the extra push for the day. They know how they are doing, and as a result, are more focused and sense they are in control. 

Rethinking targets 

Targets given to contact center employees are often the same as the ones given to their managers e.g. hit a revenue goal or an AHT benchmark over a long period (e.g. month). For frontline employees, however, it’s difficult to relate high-level targets to day to day activities.  

Furthermore, these high-level goals don’t drive behavior as there is no clear path connecting a certain activity or behavior to the successful achievement of the target. To drive behavior, goals need to be personalized, achievable, and guide the employee towards the desired outcome. They should focus on short-term goals and not just longer-term ones. 

The alternative is to break down goals into smaller chunks. Digital engagement tools allow managers to set short-term targeted goals and provide employees with visual representations of their progress, like a fitness tracker for work. Employees aren’t vaguely expected to improve their handle times but have clear set targets such as answer 10 more calls in the next two hours or improve your NPS by 3 points this week. These targets (or ‘challenges’) are set for employees based on their personal performance so that they are achievable and related to their weaknesses. 

Using motivation science to create a culture of coaching 

Digital engagement isn’t just about driving employee motivation: the same techniques are used to drive managers to provide coaching and feedback, with automation and suggested actions. Digital engagement can even recommend to managers what types of messages and recognition they should be sending to employees.  

Instead of relying on managerial styles and gut feelings, engagement automation can be applied to create an environment of quick, personalized, and continuous feedback. Based on data on each employee’s performance or activities, automated messages can be triggered to both employees and managers. For example, an employee could be automatically sent messages prompting him to remember to try to hit his upsell goal. Alternatively, their manager could be prompted to connect with that employee and provide coaching. 

Using digital engagement for learning  

Most contact centers treat learning as a one-time event and limit it to the classroom, or to a long zoom or pre-recorded session. Yet, research shows learning is forgotten quickly and isn’t applied on the job.  

Digital engagement offers continuous adaptive training delivered as micro-learning nuggets. It replaces one-time, one-size-fits-all, learning and re-sizes it into microlessons, bite-sized targeted training activities. They can be as simple as prompts on how to prepare for a call or as complex as multistage, branched service simulations. The best are simple questions – like taking a 5-question multi-choice quiz once a day. Each employee will get a different microlearning session, according to their needs and performance KPIs. Additionally, this approach means that on-the-job training can replace, in some situations, taking employees off the floor. In this approach, learning can be done every day (for several minutes, as an example), so it is retained and applied. 

This approach is also an excellent solution to the question of how to convey new product/process information (or even technical information, such as outages) to call center agents. 

The impact of creating a culture of digital motivation 

When a digital engagement approach is taken, employees are exposed to  

  • Real-time performance management – “competing” with themselves 
  • On-the-job microlearning 
  • Continuous coaching and communications with their manager 
  • Peer recognition  
  • Team challenges 
But what is the impact in terms of culture and motivation? It’s deeper than it seems. 

  1. Objective, transparent data 
Since gamified performance management uses performance data from enterprise apps, employees are suddenly exposed to a daily stream of data about their performance. While the main goal is to have employees reflect on their performance, one of the positive outcomes is that employees perceive data as objective and transparent and therefore fair, giving them a better perception of the company as a whole. 

  1. Frequent updates leave room for growth 
Automatic updates can be used to refresh leaderboards and other gamified feedback mechanisms. Whether these occur on a daily or weekly basis, they give constant individual and team-based feedback. They also leave hope for change – “if I didn’t do well today; I can do well tomorrow or next week.” 

  1. Many opportunities for recognition 
Gamification can single out top performers in certain segments, people who’ve progressed relative to themselves, top performers, teams, and more. This causes employees to feel their performance is noticed and appreciated as well as to keep them driving ahead. Additionally, digital engagement also includes a virtual store where employees can exchange virtual coins for swag or for benefits such as scheduling perks. 

  1. Creating a sense of mastery 
Mastery is the feeling that “I am getting better at this” – a sense of progression that is provided by results tracking and comparisons that are inherent in any digital motivation solution. As its name suggests, enterprise gamification is integrated into enterprise applications, making the use of game mechanics simpler and more streamlined. It also gives accurate information about all employees. 

  1. Gamification motivates everyone 
Employees can work against personal benchmarks, get recognition based on their relative improvement, earn points for completing training tasks, and more. Recognition isn’t given just to top performers, and the coaching module highlights employees that need special attention. 

  1. Creating a learning culture 
Instead of shuttling employees to training classes, microlearning can be integrated into the flow of work, delivered through the digital motivation platform, and presented to employees during quiet times or when their performance falters (and as a way to earn points). 

  1. Gamification drives the balance 
Contact center employees need to balance conflicting expectations, resolve issues fast, and get high customer satisfaction ratings. By tracking many elements, and highlighting the need to improve some, employees can better balance their work and priorities to achieve better results. It happens quicker with game-based performance metrics. 

Conclusion 

Digital engagement platforms are the future of a digital culture of recognition, performance, and learning for frontline employees. Using motivation science and a new approach to gamification, as well as adding in learning (in small microlearning nuggets) and manager coaching (that is also gamified, automated, and assisted by AI) can truly change the employee experience. Digital culture can be formed for frontline employees in the contact center and not just limited to communications platforms for knowledge workers. This future gives operations managers much more impact on the thousands of employees in the contact center, and the assurance they are positively impacting them and the way they are treated at work. 

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