The Science Behind Agent Performance Gamification
Customer experience is often the deciding factor in whether customers stay loyal to a brand. The strength of the customer service experience lies in the hands of contact center agents, who are on the front line and interact directly with customers.
If you’re trying to improve both your agents’ performance and your customers’ satisfaction levels, you may be wondering how gamification can help. Well, there’s a science behind it especially when you work with NGNCloudComm Insights (NGNInsights). We offer data-driven, science backed solutions that help you measure agent performance and incentivize them to achieve specific goals.
Let’s dive into the science behind agent performance gamification so that you can get better results from your contact center team today!
How Benchmarking Agent Performance Improves Results
Benchmarking your agent’s performance is a great way to improve their results. Benchmarking involves measuring a call center’s performance against standards to ensure that agents and supervisors are producing the best outcomes possible. It also helps agents learn what is expected of them, how they are performing according to those expectations, and what areas need improvement.
NGNCloudComm Insights (NGNInsights) makes it easy to track performance metrics so you can put the data with easy-to-read benchmarks in front of both your agents and supervisors. This process promotes Self-Governing agents who take responsibility for their own performance, resulting in employees that feel recognized and encouraged. Additionally, setting clear objectives from the start will lead to a significant boost in performance during your initial 90 days.
The Psychology Behind Self-Governing Agents
One of the key elements behind employee performance gamification is the concept of self-governance. This notion comes from both psychology and philosophy. It takes into account the idea of self-determination or autonomy based on the idea that people have a sense of agency—that is, a desire to have control over their actions and the outcomes that come from them.
Self-determination further suggests that agents can think for themselves, and then act on the basis of that deliberation. This is exactly what agent performance gamification seeks to achieve—it empowers agents (and supervisors!) to take control of their own performance, while using easy-to-read real-time data as benchmarks.
By simply putting data in front of your agents, you can generate initial performance jumps in as little as 90 days by giving them clear guidance and tangible rewards for meeting targets.
Agent Performance Gamification with Leaderboards and Awards
NGNCloudComm Insights (NGNInsights) makes it easy to gamify your agent performance. A key part of that is through the badges and leaderboards. This will keep agents and supervisors motivated and engaged, while also providing a way to track and measure progress.
Awards are not only used as rewards for agents but also are used as status symbols. Each completed task or successful call can unlock a new award and help motivate agents to continue to push themselves to higher levels of performance. Leaderboards, on the other hand, show the positions of agents in comparison to one another so they know who is performing best in terms of the parameters you set for success. This encourages friendly competition between agents, making them strive for even higher levels of performance.
Additionally, points are used to track progress and unlock rewards — this creates an exciting challenge as each new action taken by an agent brings them closer to unlocking something special or earning recognition from higher-up management. All these processes together can create a sense of accomplishment that leads to more success in the future!
Points in NGNCloudComm Insights (NGNInsights) are more than just a score. With our point system you are able to compare all of your agents – full time vs part time – phone dedicated/skilled vs blended – etc. The points system only takes into account the key KPIs and they can be weighted by team and/or by skill set. So you know that your best agents with the best ROI for your contact center are the agents with the most Pts/Hr.
Setting Clear Expectations and Key Performance Indicators
Every successful performance system requires setting clear expectations and KPI goals that are long-term measurements used to ensure a final objective is achieved. You also need to consider both behavior and end results when measuring performance—it’s not just about hitting targets, but how you got there.
NGNCloudComm Insights (NGNInsights) provides an easy way to track KPI’s and quantify individual and organizational goals. With data visualizations like intuitive dashboards and reports, your agents can quickly understand their performance against benchmarks. This makes it easier to set realistic targets, which motivates agents to strive for new heights in customer satisfaction — and ultimately increase sales.
Monitoring and Measuring Agent Performance in Real-Time
Using NGNCloudComm Insights (NGNInsights) to track call center agent performance metrics in real-time is simple. With NGNCloudComm Insights (NGNInsights), you get a real-time understanding of how individual agents are performing and how that impacts the contact center as a whole.
So how does it work? NGNCloudComm Insights (NGNInsights) has access to real-time information, independent of the source, to get detailed insights into customer experience and compliance. This helps identify where the gaps are in your contact center operations so that you can make improvements.
More specifically, NGNCloudComm Insights (NGNInsights) has features that allow managers to:
- Standardizes your evaluation process consistently across all agent and supervisors
- Track each agent’s performance against key metrics such as talk time, hold time, average handle time (AHT), customer satisfaction scores (CSAT)and average speed of answer (ASA)
- Identify opportunities for improvement by comparing individual performance to benchmarks
- Provide measurable performance goals for agents so they know what is expected of them
- Utilize the A.I. benchmarking tool to compare actual behavior to projected behavior
With these metrics in front of your agents, you’ll be able to generate an initial performance jump in your first 90 days by simply displaying the data in front of the agents to create the “self-determination” and by creating an open feedback loop with their supervisor. Agents learn what is expected of them, how they are performing according to those expectations, and they are rewarded for their performance. All this helps promote Self-Governing agents who take responsibility for their own performance.
Rewarding and Recognizing Top Performing Agents
Rewarding and recognizing top performing agents is an effective way to motivate employees to achieve results. It also helps create a positive work environment, where agents feel valued and appreciated for their efforts.
There are a variety of ways you can reward and recognize employees for their performance. Preferential scheduling is one way—allocating hours to the agents who have shown the highest performance ratings over the past few weeks or months.
You can also reward agents with cash prizes or customer ratings, which provide public recognition for the kind of behavior you want to see in your team.
Another effective way to recognize your top performers is to set aside a budget specifically for them. This can be used in any number of ways, ranging from extra days off, special bonuses or even trips away with the team!
By rewarding and recognizing your top performing agents, you increase motivation amongst all employees and foster a culture of excellence that everyone wants to be part of.
NGNCloudComm Insights (NGNInsights) allows your call center to automize the rewarding process, bringing an extra perception as to being objective rather than subjective.
Conclusion
Optimizing your agents and supervisory performance does not have to be a complicated task. With the right tools, you can gamify your employee performance tracking in an easy, effective, and efficient way. With NGNCloudComm Insights (NGNInsights), you can quickly and easily set expectations, track performance, and encourage your agents with rewards. All these steps will create Self-Governing agents who are motivated to take responsibility and continuously improve your team’s performance. The big win: your team’s performance will skyrocket, and your bottom line will benefit from increased efficiency, better customer experience, and a greater return on investment.