Here are some great ideas to help improve morale in your contact centre.
1. Ask the management team to do something silly like “dance in a conga line”
A fun and free way to push agents to reach their targets is to say: “If today’s target is reached, the management team will dance in a conga line around the office.”
Then reward agents with the funny spectacle when they achieve their target!
With thanks to Max
2. Reward agents with a “free jeans” pass
We regularly reward our agents with a “free jeans” pass, which gives them permission to wear jeans to work for a whole week.
Everyone loves it!
With thanks to Les
3. Hand out new name tags
When I last handed out new name tags for everyone’s desks it generated a lot of excitement.
Everyone was so happy about having new names tags that displayed their name in a star.
With thanks to Jennifer
4. Have 2 pay reviews each year
We have 2 pay reviews a year, which is a great morale boost.
With thanks to Denise
5. Play a knock-out survivor game on your sales floor
We’ve seen great success with a “survivor game”.
Pitching teams against each other, with every successful call or sale, a staff member can knock out a member from another team.
If you have been knocked out, you can come back into the game after you have made a sale or a successful call.
With thanks to Bob
6. Speak to your team about their family
I speak to my team and get to know them.
Asking them about their families makes them feel that they matter – and this is a fabulous motivator!
With thanks to Denise
7. Award 10 days’ paid holiday to people who haven’t used any sick leave
In the last call centre I worked at, if you had no sick days for a year, you got 10 days in LIEU (compared to 5 paid sick days).
It was an incentive to come into work and a reward for not “pulling a sickie”.
Only one or two people ever got it, but it was a good incentive and rewarded the people who did turn up to work every day!
With thanks to Katy
For more incentive ideas and guidance, read our article: How to Make the Most of Your Staff Incentives – With Examples
8. Ask the MD to regularly drop in and do a motivational speech
Ask the MD to do a motivation speech every few weeks, or some kind of meeting to show their face.
With thanks to Helen
9. List agents’ achievements on a “wall of merit”
We have a wall of merit where we have every staff member’s name up alongside what they have most recently achieved.
With thanks to Jenny
10. Save up all the great customer feedback until the end of the month
Every month I publish appreciations from customers about our service and our agents on our staff intranet.
Publishing it all in one go is quite a big hit!
With thanks to Shona
11. Promote staff in a way that is fair and clear to everyone involved
Promote staff by using a fair and clear process that is in place to reward consistent performance levels.
Progression opportunities should be visible to everyone.
With thanks to Paul
12. Have a superhero theme on the contact centre floor
We have a superhero theme, where we encourage our staff to behave like superheroes to assist the clients.
Capes are optional.
With thanks to Shalandra
13. Celebrate your contact centre’s anniversary with a free buffet
We celebrate the anniversary of the company opening, offering a free buffet, drinks and entertainment.
It is really motivating.
With thanks to Denise
14. Host team-building activities to create more opportunities to socialise
Agents enjoy team-building activities, as they get to socialise outside their normal working environment.
“Cook offs” between different teams always go down well.
With thanks to Ryan
15. Take agents out to lunch during the working day
We take our agents out to lunch during the working day just to say “thank you” for all their hard work.
It is an even better reward if it is a surprise!
With thanks to Helen
16. Mix up your incentives to make the most of a fixed budget
I think it’s best to change it up in terms of the incentives used to reward the team. Keep the same budget, but mix it up with vouchers and fun events.
Keep the team guessing!
With thanks to Alex
17. Bring in pizza takeaways
I get pizza takeaways.
The team love being fed together, as it gives them the opportunity to chat too.
This also works well to keep everyone motivated on a Friday night shift.
With thanks to Helen and Clint
18. Reward top performers with a Gold status
We have a Bronze, Silver and Gold levels.
Staff can receive extra money by achieving the next level in relation to targets and behaviours.
It stops things from becoming too stale – and keeps everyone happy and motivated – between official pay reviews.
With thanks to Janice
19. Save up your fun budget for bigger events like go-karting
Save up the team “fun budget” to take the full team out on karting days, bowling nights out, etc.
It’s a great team-building exercise and has worked brilliantly!
With thanks to Denise
For more fun ideas like this, but designed for remote teams, read our article: 15 Great Ideas to Make Remote Working Fun
20. Regularly change the end goal for winning a prize
Try changing the end goal for winning a prize to help keep everyone motivated by competitions across the year.
For example, focus on the best call quality, then switch the focus to highest levels of attendance, and so on.
With thanks to Colisha
21. Walk around the floor and say “thank you” to your agents for their hard work
I used to get a thank you every day from my previous boss.
It was really appreciated and we definitely all noticed if he missed a day!
With thanks to Jennifer
22. Hand out free coffee to everyone who is on time for their shift
We say thank you to our agents for being on time by rewarding them with free coffee at the start of their shift.
With thanks to Jaime
23. Recognise progress not perfection
A great way to keep the whole floor motivated is to recognise progress, not perfection.
With thanks to Alex
24. Send top performers out for a posh dinner with the management team
We take all our top performers out for a posh dinner at the end of the month with the management team.
We also give them certificates, personalised jumpers and put their face up on a “VIP brag board” – motivating the others to get to the top too!
With thanks to Jennifer
25. Reward additional bonuses for those exceeding targets
We get a bonus based on hitting our monthly targets – and then there is a higher bonus for exceeding our targets.
With thanks to Bianca
26. Everyone loves subsidised coffee
We have subsidised coffee, which everyone loves!
With thanks to Ryan
27. Run a peer recognition scheme to reward those going above and beyond
We’ve run a scheme in the past where anyone (managers and agents alike) could recognise a staff member for going above and beyond.
Those selected were formally recognised as being pioneers of the company.
With thanks to Denise
28. Pass a trophy around between your Agent of the Month winners
Reward a trophy to your Agent of the Month winner.
The trophy can then stay on their desk for a whole month until the next winner gets announced.
You could also engrave it across the year, and place it in the trophy cabinet as part of your Christmas wind-down celebrations.
With thanks to Alex
29. Friday BBQs
Our department does BBQ Fridays for their team.
It really works to put a smile on everyone’s faces before heading home for the weekend.
With thanks to Ryan
30. Bulk buy crisps, sweets and cans of drink for an on-floor snack store
One idea from our morale committee is a snack store.
We buy items in bulk like cans of drink and bags of sweets. We then charge a £1 for everything and the profit is put towards the office social fund.
With thanks to Colisha
For more interesting ideas for helping your team to find their smiles at work, read our articles:
- Remote Staff Engagement: 9 Strategies to Make Your Team Smile
- 11 Creative Tips to Boost Morale in the Contact Centre
- Six of the Best Games for Your Contact Centre
Author: Megan Jones
Published On: 11th May 2016 - Last modified: 11th Dec 2020
Read more about - Call Centre Life, Editor's Picks, Employee Engagement, Fun, Incentives, Morale, Motivation
Regularly hold “pub quizes” it builds morale and is a great way to get staff laughing. A happy agent is a hard working agent.
We created a Service Hero award. An employee can be recognized by a customer (internal or external)and then their name goes on the wall and they receive a pin to place on their cubicle wall, becomes a badge of honor. Once a quarter, we hold an awards ceremony where we recognize Quality Customer Experience top performers, overall metrics top performers, and perfect attendance. We also have a “People’s Choice” (peer nominated). The leadership team collecting selects a Rookie of the Quarter and an Associate of the Quarter. Awards vary from $10 – $50 gift cards, paid time off, and 1-2 day training classes that the winners select and pick up the bill. That one is a win-win for us.
I’m afraid I’m going to have to be critical of #7 for a couple of reasons.
1. I feel like this unfairly punishes women. It is generally women who take sick leave to care for their child when they are too unwell for school or day care while the men go back to work. Women also often need to take sick leave due to period pain, another problem that doesn’t affect men. But in general, it punishes people for being sick. People can’t help getting sick! I’d find it demotivating to know I lost my 2 weeks holiday for being unlucky and getting the flu. Which brings me to…..
2. It might discourage sickies but It encourages employees to come to work when they are GENUINELY very sick instead of staying at home. There is nothing worse than THOSE employers who ‘soldier on’ while they have a cold or flu……and make everyone else around them sick. And then I catch it from them, need a week off because I have a the flu and then lose my ‘no sickies’ bonus because of people who didn’t want to lose theirs so came into the office and infected everyone within a 25m radius of their desk with the flu.
We do Snow-cones once in a while to share with our walk up support center, and the Technicians enjoy serving as well as consuming the treats
We try and arrange a social event monthly and every Friday we do a Greggs run to get breakfast 🙂 I love these though – ecspecially the bulk buy, we work with Cancer Research so the rest could go to charity! Thanks!