Call centre case-study with 5 Top Tips
In different parts of the world, things are ‘getting back to normal’. Here in the UK, pubs, hair salons, and hotels have re-opened, but many workplaces will long need to continue with remote teams, even as far as October, bringing the grand total of lockdown to almost 8 months.
There’s been tons of great advice circulating about staying sane in the working-in-an-office to working-from-home transition; from setting up a distraction-free space, ensuring that you exercise, Zoom meeting etiquette etc.
But what about being engaged with work during these times?
Engagement is an elusive fuel. It’s not something we can buy, and even when we’re feeling engaged – when we’re ‘in flow’ – we often can’t put a finger on exactly what got us there. We battle with lethargy – that feeling of “I can’t be bothered” – even with some of us being paid handsomely. But money isn’t a motivator for everyone. If it was, we’d all be engaged with our work every day, but of course we know we’re not. Among friends, I’m often told how productive they think I am, and how “I’m always doing something”, but even I run out of steam – we all do – and I know I’ve said more than once that I wish there was a pill I could take to feel motivated.
In COVID times, we’re also dealing with added challenges; higher stress levels, uncertainty, and the need for innovation. It’s said that many businesses need to pivot and adapt in these times. This takes great skill, care, and innovative thinking. We also know that for many, the novelty of working from home is now wearing thin – another challenge for management in keeping employees engaged.
But, until they invent a Motivation Pill, we’ll have to look elsewhere – and the ingredients of games have the answer.
The four key ingredients of gamification
Games have four, what I call, ‘game ingredients’ – the very things that make a game a game. These are:
- Goals (this can be individualistic goals, such as ‘saving money to go on holiday’ to transcendent goals, where we work toward something bigger than ourselves, such as ‘volunteering to pick up plastic from the local beach, to help the wider ecosystem’. Games often have both goal types.
- Autonomy opportunities – the freedom of choice in how, when, where we do something
- Rules – things you can and can’t do – limitations. In a game, this might be “lose 3 lives, and you have to start again’.
- Feedback – scores, progress bars, leader boards – these are all examples of feedback.
‘GARF’ is a handy mnemonic to remember these four ingredients.
Imbue these four ingredients in anything, and you’ve gamified something. For example, if you insert GARF into weight loss, you’ve got Weight Watchers (indeed, members have dress size goals, and where is there a more stark feedback system than seeing your own weight on the scales?). Insert GARF into learning how to code, and you’ve got Code Academy. Insert GARF into taking good photos, and you’ve got GuruShot. Insert GARF into learning a language, and you’ve got DuoLingo. The list goes on – quite literally anything and everything can be gamified.
In the workplace in particular, we need the game ingredient of Feedback desperately. As author and motivation expert Daniel Pink says “workplaces are feedback deserts” and I agree. Some people get reviews once a year, leaving huge gaps in-between that sense of purpose and gratification that comes with feedback. From friends in the C-suite to floor-level staff, one common grumble is that they don’t know the impact they’re having, or what they’re working toward. To know where we’re going, we often need to see where we’ve been, and this is why the game ingredients of goals and feedback are powerful partners.
One company – a fashion retailer – is where *Angela works as call centre support, and has been working from home since March. Angela is a familiar face from the park where both she and I walk our dogs. One day, our conversation turned to work, and it was clear from her description that her entire role is gamified. Fascinated, I arranged a time to watch her work in her home office (from a socially safe distance).
The powerful partnership of feedback and goals: case-study from a fashion retailer call centre
Angela notes that her work goals have become more challenging as she, and other employees, master their customer service experience. This, in itself, is one strategy born from games; that they get more challenging as you ‘level up’.
In addition, there are 3 different layers of goals, each with clear feedback systems.
- Query-Solutions ratio: Angela’s managers expect staff to solve at least 5 customer queries with solutions, per hour. If an employee falls under target, management will check in to see if there’s an issue. Angela is clear that this comes from a place of empathy and support, rather than reprimand. Equally, if a member of staff is succeeding, they’ll get a message from supervisors saying well done, thanks, keep going etc. At the end of each day, staff can access a dashboard showing their average query-solution ratio. This is an example of consistent, daily micro goal setting; a ‘drip-feed’ of feedback, if you will.
- ‘One Response’ targets: This is where staff aim to give a customer a solution to their issue with a single response. This target should be above 80%. This is monitored weekly.
- Quality Assurance goals: This is where email and telephone recording samples are analysed by management in order to grade quality of work. Call centre staff have to reach a target of at least 80% every month. While the percentage target doesn’t increase, rewards are given when consistently achieving higher. If an employee hits 90%+ for 3 months running, they get a financial bonus. Feedback on these scores are provided monthly.
If staff consistently do well, they level up. Angela says “you start by being on telephone and email, then it’s the chat function, and then employees can level up to respond on social media. Obviously that needs a lot of trust and reliability for a company to trust someone to respond to queries on really public platforms. Then if you do that well, they often let you choose what you want to work on that day – like some people prefer email, others prefer the phone etc.”
There’s also a monthly company-wide presentation that everyone must watch, which makes the Transcendent Goals of the company clear; the founder herself shares information on levels of revenue, bestsellers, and crucially, how close they are to meeting the company-wide targets. There are also shout-outs for employees who’ve been performing well, and team scores read out in a kind of global leaderboard.
Angela says she feels consistently productive and glued to her screen – even now when she’s working from home. She says, “my husband asks me what I’d like for dinner, or something important –but he gets frustrated that I don’t respond because I’m focused on what I’m doing”. Indeed, when watching her work for a few hours, and having me there as a distraction, I often had to stop talking, such was her intent on focusing on the job at hand.
She also added: “Yesterday, I got a really lovely message from my supervisor. She noticed that I got above average on the “One Response” score and said well-done. When you’re indoors most of the day, that little message might not seem much to others but it means a lot to me, and makes me want to keep going”.
In observing Angela at work, we can borrow some tips to keep remote employees as engaged as she.
Here are the top 5 tips we can borrow on how to use the powerful partnership of goals and feedback
- Apply a mix of qualitative and quantitative feedback (i.e. verbal support from management as well as things like like scores).
- Make goals clear, with different ‘layers’ of goals; individual goals as well as company wide (transcendent) goals
- Articulate the progress on the different goals by giving different frequencies of feedback, i.e. daily, weekly, monthly
- Use this progress-monitoring to then give other milestones and give people a chance to ‘level up’. Reward them with further challenges and responsibility.
- Give some choice (autonomy) in how staff do their job, as long as they do it well.
In Part 2 of this column, I’ll share a 10-step employee engagement guide, including the role of play to alleviate stress and encourage innovation.
*The name of this person has been changed to protect her identity.
