How do you balance competition and collaboration among your agents through gamification?

Balancing competition and collaboration among agents through gamification involves creating a system that rewards both individual and team success. Implementation of leaderboards for individual metrics can bring healthy competition, while team-based challenges require agents to work together towards common goals should be added. A mix of rewards to motivate different types of behaviors, like, individual rewards for top performers and team rewards for achieving collective goals. Ensure the gamification metrics promote positive outcomes, such as customer satisfaction and resolution rate, than just quantity-based metrics like call volume. This approach fosters a collaborative environment for combined success.

Gamification should not hinder the collaboration aspect of the contact centers, collaboration should be part of the gamification process, where collaboration holds the highest reward and makes others want to be better at their role while helping others to be better. this will create a much sustainable eco-system with in agents where train the trainer model can be brought in to a certain extend. Further AI features as agent assist reduce the dependencies from other agents to increase first contact resolution

Absolutely ! Integrating collaboration into gamification fosters teamwork, while AI features like agent assist boost efficiency and improve first contact resolution.

🎯 Gamification without clear goals is like a game without a scoreboard - it's just not as fun! We make sure to align our gamification metrics with our overall business objectives. It keeps everyone focused on what really matters: delivering exceptional customer experiences.

Defining clear goals and metrics in gamification is indeed fundamental to its success – just like effective performance management, employee engagement, coaching, or leadership in general. The rules of the game should be simple and clear, and its overall design and purpose should, of course, align with the organization’s mission, purpose, desired outcomes, and culture. Gamification should also leverage the same systems or “sources of truth” that serve ops, business intelligence, reporting, and analytics. What drives game “scoring” must align with what drives business decision-making overall.

You’d need a book to cover the vast ways game mechanics can be used to improve customer contact ops and the business. As with any technology, you must define the business problem you’re seeking to solve first and design your gamification strategy and solution from there. I am partial to game types that connect the ordinarily disconnected, i.e., senior leaders and frontline staff. Why? Because it addresses key challenges in hybrid/remote work, breaks down internal silos (systems, data, processes, and workforce), and facilitates greater collaboration, trust, innovation, and other qualities that create a better work environment and drive both customer and business success.

🪜 Leveling up isn't just for video games! We create challenges that are both fun and meaningful, encouraging agents to stretch their skills and learn new things. It's about fostering healthy competition while also promoting collaboration and teamwork.

🎉 Everyone loves a little recognition! We mix up our rewards to keep things fresh - from badges and points to shout-outs and even small prizes. It's amazing how a little bit of gamification can boost morale and motivate the whole team.

📈 Gamification isn't a set-it-and-forget-it thing. We constantly track performance and gather feedback to make sure our system is working as intended. If something isn't resonating with our agents, we're not afraid to make changes and try something new.

It’s not a stretch to view game mechanics in much the same way as LLMs and Generative AI – both powerful tools that can be leveraged to boost human creativity, abilities, knowledge, cooperation, and capacity – making work better by reducing stress and friction and increasing connection, engagement, performance, and fun.