Gamification is a simple concept: Take the mechanics that drive successful video games (or games in general) and apply them to your business so that your employees aren’t only engaged, they’re given more reasons to push themselves in their jobs. In the contact center, gamification can not only level up your employees’ experience and performance—it’ll improve your customer experience.

But gamification only works if you do a good job implementing it.1 Done properly, gamification is driving growth in companies like DuoLingo, which has built its entire business with gamification at the center of their user experience. From streaks to ingots to leveling up, DuoLingo has made learning a new language a passion for more than 200 million people.2

If you’re unsure where to start when implementing a successful gamification strategy in your contact center, here are three critical pieces of advice.

  1. Don’t just celebrate the top performer. If you only celebrate your rock star, everybody else loses motivation. The whole purpose of gamification is to allow any employee to be celebrated when they achieve a goal or reach a milestone.
  2. Keep a long view, and don’t just pass out hefty rewards each month. If your budget ever gets tight, you might have to make some cuts in that department. Make the game more about the competition—and less about the rewards. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have rewards; set “missions” for either individuals or teams and let those missions carry rewards. Just don’t make rewards the sole focus of your game.
  3. Plan out your game ahead of time and incorporate as many quality game mechanics as you can. There are easy ones to incorporate, such as points and levels, and there are more difficult ones like quizzes. For a full list of game mechanics check out this article on gamification.

Every large project can seem daunting at first. But once you have games in place, you can reap the benefits down the road. And your employees will regularly look forward to coming to work each day.

Genesys AppFoundry partner eMite has gamification functionality built into its solution and can help you execute on your strategy. Communicating progress in your game is paramount to keep employees engaged—and having custom-built, gamified dashboards is a good way to do this.

1 Does Gamification Actually Work? Yes, and Here’s Why. Leier. https://www.td.org/insights/does-gamification-actually-work-yes-and-heres-why

2 Duolingo Hires Its First Chief Marketing Officer As Active User Numbers Stagnate but Revenue Grows Frederic Lardinois-Frederic Lardinois – https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/01/duolingo-hires-its-first-chief-marketing-officer-as-active-user-numbers-stagnate/