Can you Recommend any Games I can use to Motivate my Agents?

Struggling to find the right games for your agents to play whilst working in the call centre?

Here are some games, activities, and contest ideas that we have gathered in response to a question from one of our readers.

We were asked…

Can you recommend any games I can use in the call centre that will motivate my agents? Ideally, I’m looking for something where the outcomes can be used as part of our rewards scheme.

Team-Focused Motivational Games

The first consideration for any manager that wants to enter in to team-focused motivational games operating within a contact centre environment is to ensure they have the budget, time and dedication required to make it a success. Without all three components firmly in place, any company-wide initiative will fail due to a lack of engagement and belief by your staff.

However, when available in abundance – working in collaboration with creativity and imagination – you can visibly see your results, and your staff can be motivated to achieve significantly improved levels of performance.

The use of call centre games has grown and developed from ‘Treasure Island’, through to enormous versions of ‘Snakes and Ladders’ leading to the current vogue of Play Station tournaments (where achievement of sales equals time off dialling to play in tournaments league tables and so on).

But to be clear, the term ‘games’ has come to represent two separate types of team activity: short-term quick bursts of fun and energy as described in Robert Epstein’s Big Book of Motivational Games, and long-term engagement strategies that serve to motivate a centre over a pre-determined period of time.

Both types are valid but, in terms of which works best, I find that those work-related, sustainable competitions that are open to all employees are better at ensuring inclusivity and engagement. An appropriate example is a points-winning competition or recognition scheme, which may be termed a ‘Championship’ or ‘League’, and which is applicable to either individuals and/or teams.

Relatively easy to design and implement, every individual may automatically be entered in to a programme where all participants can earn points for all applicable centre-specific criteria. Typically these might include attendance, punctuality, call average handling time, realisation of quality targets and mystery shopping scores.

Following an appropriate qualifying period of monitored time – one where tables and positions are diligently updated – the winners may redeem their points for prizes according to their final place in the league. You might, for example, want to badge them as Olympic-style gold, silver and bronze medal winners.

In summary, through the use of games you can engage your staff and get their buy-in. In turn, you and your company will reap benefits in terms of tenure, capability, performance, profitability and engagement.

Thanks to Tracy

Be Wary about Using the Word ‘Games’ with Agents

Be wary about using the word ‘games’ with agents. In trying to motivate them, using such a term might alienate older staff or those who think that call centre work isn’t taken seriously enough as it is. Rather, consider team-building exercises like ‘Chinese whispers’ or ‘test your observation’ energisers. These highlight wider thinking, teamwork and improve self-awareness.

If you are looking at setting up a reward scheme, something that you may want to consider is a ‘product knowledge challenge’.

The objective of this exercise would be to encourage ownership of self-development through working together as a team. Each team is given a product per month/quarter to champion. It is then that particular team’s responsibility to up-skill the other teams to the same level of product knowledge through whatever methods get the best results – for example, through quizzes, tests or presentations.

After this, the management team will independently test the knowledge across all the products and teams – by randomly selecting and testing an equal number of staff from each team – at month/quarter end.

Two prizes/rewards might be allocated. The first prize would go to the team that has delivered the most effective product training for the product that is best/most widely understood. The second prize would go to the team that has the overall highest scores on product knowledge across all products.

By distributing two prizes, this will encourage effective delivery of accurate product information. It will also encourage ownership to learn/increase product knowledge.

Thanks to Helen

Training Games for for Introductory ‘Icebreakers’

Increasingly, call centre training is becoming far longer in duration, greater in scope and content, and more challenging in terms of the learning approaches and methods used. Therefore training games can not only provide opportunities for introductory ‘icebreakers’, but also a welcome respite from the main training content while strongly reinforcing those training themes previously introduced and explored.
The games we employ at Garlands are voluntary, yet people are enthusiastic to take part. One such team-building game is used during agent induction – usually towards the end of the very first day of training.

‘Light tight’ blindfolds are given to each group and a number of plastic pieces of various colours and shapes are handed to participants. Players are informed that there are seven sets of coloured shapes in total and that, without removing their blindfolds, the objective is to identify which one of the set of 35 is missing. The only external help is provided by a referee – someone who is allowed to identify the colour of any piece held up by a player.

Slowly, and often after some initial confusion, most groups make steady progress. They typically develop a verbal code for describing the shapes involved and, when it is realised that the pieces are in colour sets, will identify each colour and shape present. By a process of elimination, the missing piece is revealed.

As well as being great fun to take part in, this game teaches critical team skills: the importance of developing precise and well-honed communications skills, and the need for each individual within the team to play a full part in order for the team to achieve its group task.

Another popular team game is one we use during ‘academy’ training – the top-up training that each new team receives during its first year of formation.

This is an outdoor activity game that requires each team to cross an imaginary chasm. The only equipment they can use is what is provided. The instructions are precise, and it is only at the end of the game that the purpose is revealed.

Far from having to physically transport all the gear, an easy shortcut is available that only the most patient and attentive teams detect. Again, as well as being hugely enjoyable, the game serves as a reminder that a little knowledge can be dangerous and even lead to complacency and ultimately failure. It also reinforces the importance of working together as a team.

Thanks to Chey

Bingo Games Work Great

Bingo games work great. We are currently running an incentive to give tokens for each ‘good’ job. They collect tokens, the more tokens, the better the prizes. Such as footballs, gift cards, hotel nights away, go-carting etc

Thanks to Tony

Survivor Island

I’m a supervisor in sales & we love survivor island. We give them the option to take immunity instead of kicking someone off so they cannot be kicked off until someone takes the immunity from them, then at the end of the shift if there is multiple people left on the island we let those who were kicked off vote for a winner. It really increased morale & performance. The agents form alliances with one another to create more productive team work. We use this often.

Right now we are playing a baseball competition. Every two sales an agent gets they move forward a base, at the end of the week/two weeks/month or however long you run the contest the agent with the most runs wins, you can add a second and third place as well.

We also play tons of other games such as jeopardy and hangman. Quiz games always ensure they are up on current promotions & product knowledge.

These comments have been extremely helpful and I am excited to try some of the new contests I have read about.

Thanks to Marlee

“The Price is Right”

I am A supervisor in a large call centre. With one of the teams I recently played a game called “The Price is Right”
I purchased a total of 20 items (all random and from different stores).
Each sale the agent made they got to pick 1 item ranging from the cheapest to the most expensive. Once they had ordered the whole 20 items and were completely happy with their choice, they had to leave it until the end OR they could keep playing and with every other sale they got they could change one item.
At the end of the shift the one with the most items in the correct order was the winner and kept all items. Team loved it. It was a great Fun Friday.

Thanks to Karen

Pluck Your Luck

I work in a relatively small call center, right now we have about 11 people. We played an upsell game called Pluck Your Luck. Make a board full of prizes, I used sticky notes and folded them over and taped them on the board. When the agents upsell 5 add-ons they get to pluck a prize. For 11 people I used about 100 sticky notes of prizes to last a month. Prizes can range from an extra break to a paid day off. This contest really helped our reps stay engaged and our sales went up! Everyone had so much fun picking random prizes.

Thanks to SC

Knockout

We play a game similar to Wipe Out but call it knockout. We put 6 boxes on a white board and each time an agent hits the said target they put their name in one of the boxes. When the boxes are full the agent erases a box and puts their name in. After the allotted time is up the 6 agents with names in the boxes win a prize of your choice. Brings out the competitive nature in my team.

Thanks to GW

Several Ideas

Idea 1 – Round the world

This is a team challenge. You start at a city like London. Work out how many miles from London to Rome, then from Rome to Dubai, then Dubai to Delhi, then to Beijing then to Sydney and then to the US. Link the mileage to what your centre does. for example it is 1140 miles from London to Rome – this could be the number of sales you make, the number of debts collected, the number of complaints resolved. Whichever team makes this number 1st wins a meal at a local Italian restaurant, or a take away pizza voucher and bottle of italian wine. In addition when all teams arrive at the location you celebrate with a theme day so they have to dress up as Italians and you order in pizza. if you include Australia be prepared for beach party outfits and a barbeque. Decorate the centre with flags of the country and pictures.

If you include Hawaii you can have hoola hoola skirts.

Another way to do it is that the team that wins is when ALL members of the team achieve the target – this means others help each other.

This does take a bit of planning but can go on for quite a few weeks which gives it a good time to run.

Idea 2 – What’s in your Trolley

What’s in your trolley is a great game leading up to thanksgiving or Xmas. Select products that typically go into a trolley for the big day and assign a value to them e.g. turkey requires 100 sales or 100 successful resolutions of technical enquiries; cranberries might be 10; bottle of wine 50 and so on.
At the end of the month or the week before the holiday, each person wins the prize of what is in their trolley to take home and celebrate the season.

Idea 3 – Wipe Out

we play wipe out.. it can be used in sales or debt collection. it requires a flip chart. When someone collects money or makes a sale, they put the figure up on the white board or flip chart. the next person who gets higher puts their amount and name. this continues all days with only 3 names allowed on the board at a time. The top 3 amounts win.

Thanks to Babs

ONE Question per Day

I thought of a game that works for this in-bound call center I work in. We are always trying to achieve great customer service but getting the information right the first time is always something that makes customers happy. This game I am sure can be used in many ways.

I put together a small game board with not too many spots to finish but some of the boxes have “take another turn” or “lose your next turn” “go ahead 2 spaces” and so on…

Each week will have a new game but during the week, I come up with ONE question per day (one that makes them really think, but something that I know a shareholder will call in and ask- maybe based off a call I got in the past)

The questions is to be answered by each persons shift or you can set a time each day. With everyone who comes up with the answer correctly, they get to roll a dice to determine how many spots they can move. This will continue each day until the week is over. Whoever has made it to the finish (or closes to the finish) gets a prize.

Your prizes can be anything you want. We get little things like stress balls, silly puddy or random stuff with the company logo. You can also do like 15 leave early or a free dress down day.

Another thing we do is BINGO. Instead of numbers in the slots, I fill the card with things people can check off that they may get during calls. For example: Talk to someone in NY or Make a redempion for over a certain $ amount (this works for my call center). Basically anything you want. We play this game on Fridays.

Thanks to Crista

Clock in the Box

We play Clock in the Box. Set a small travel alarm clock for a certain time in the near future. I usually set it every hour and a 1/2. Put that clock in a small box. The name of the game is for the agents to sell the item of the day to get possession of the box. The agents can steal the box from one another as they get their own sales. Whoever is in possession of the box, when the alarm clock goes off wins!

Thanks to Tanya

Redemption Island

We used the Survivor idea and separated the department into 2 teams. For each sale/referral, they got to knock off a member from the other team to Redemption Island. Players on Redemption Island were out of the game, unless they were saved from another member on their team (instead of kicking someone off the other team, they saved a member of their own team). Also, once per week (or daily depending on your volume), we gave the highest producer immunity (or they were redeemed from redemption island) for the following week. It went over great with the department! We had our best numbers of the year when we played the game!

thanks to Marlo

Sales and Ladders

I had a large snakes and ladders kids plastic sheet games(from avon) which can be put on the wall. Use laminated names for the team (or they can choose characters), every sale they get, they get a go to spin the dice.
Whoever wins the game in the end – gets a prize.

Thanks to Alana

The Lone Assassin

The Lone Assassin can provide a long-running game to add some entertainment to a training programme or residential event.
This game should be played with a group of at least 20 (no maximum size) and can run for up to a few days depending on the size of the group.
Before the session, write all the participants’ names in a list.
Each participant has to assassinate the person below them on the list (and will be assassinated by the person above them on the list).
Provide each participant with a small slip of paper with the name of the person they have to assassinate.
To assassinate someone, the assassin has to go up to their target and say, “Bang, bang, you’re dead”. However, if anyone else hears this then the assassin has missed their target and must try again later. If the assassination succeeds, then the target is out of the game and must pass on to their assassin the name of the person they were trying to assassinate.
This person becomes the assassin’s new target. Eventually, there will be an outright winner. It is advisable to make an extra rule that nobody can be assassinated during the session times or other times you do not want to be disturbed.
People who have been assassinated can stay in the game as bodyguards for people still alive.

Thanks to Tiana

What can I do to Try and Get More People to Participate?

I have recently been hired on as a Activities Coordinator at a call centre. I have about 200 Reps and trying to come up with Games or anything to get the Reps to Participate and up the Morale. But it seems I can only get about a quarter to half to participate. I have Minute to Win it Games I have done Potlucks and Word puzzle games and with Prizes for the winners. But what can I do to try and get more people to participate?

Thanks to Jeff

Putt-Putt

I work at an outbound call center as a sales lead. Our calls were low and our talk time terrible. I had my team of 12 print parts of their database, lock their computer monitors and pack their headsets. Everyone on the team got a new section of a database, for every five messages we left we had to switch desks with another team member. This nearly tripled our talk time and dials. The team loved it (after 10 minutes). We were all standing up, talking, laughing and enjoying the energy we created for our team.

For anything positive that was accomplished in the afternoon a team member got to put their name in a coffee cup. Then after that you got to putt for a chance to put your name in the cup. At the end of the day I drew a name and bought them their favourite candy and energy drink. It was easy and got people working towards something fun.

Thanks to Jenn

“Serve us Lunch”

I work at a call center with about 40 agents on at any respective time. A “game” that we have used recently has been “serve us lunch”. Split the floor into 2 teams and then establish a point basis for each product. Obv. more value per sale on the tougher/more important products. Keep a point total on the dry erase board for the predetermined time. At the end of the 2 hours or whatever time it is total that up. The winning team is rewarded with pizza/wings that are delivered. But the losing team has to serve them. – Downfall alot of floors do not allow food on the floor and eating while selling can become difficult but it really does seem to get the floor going

Thanks to Jim

Some Fun Games

I work in an outbound call center ranging from 10-30 agents. Some fun games I have done are;

Bump- draw 15 boxes on a white board and number them 1-15. Have 3 or 4 numbers prepicked with prizes attached so you can have winners. Once your agent gets a sale they get to pick a number you write there name in the number until all the numbers are picked. Once all boxes have names the game turns to bump, agents now get to kick people out. At the end of the day/shift/hour name the prepicked numbers to see who the winners will be.

Secret square- have 10 sheets of paper with the numbers 1-10 written on each peice of paper. Have a post it with a prize on the back (dress down pass, 15 min, leave early, 10 personal break on me etc.)Every sale (2sales) you pick a square.

Here’s a get to know your team game- Give all your agents a piece of paper have them write 5 things about them that know one knows. Every sale you get to add one the interesting things they wrote down. If the agent guesses wrong you add another fact about the secret person.

Thanks to Dani

States Game

We do the states game and this works for agents that work onsite or who might work at home. onsite we print off a copy of the US as they make contacts and sell or whatever your center might do, they get to claim that state, person with the most states wins, or you can do once someone claims that state no one else can claim it , daily, weekly, monthly however you want to do it, awarding prizes during or at the end. We have played this for years.

Thanks to Trivett

Dress up

Dress up (twin day, nerd day, superhero day, dress like my kid day, backwards day, etc)

___the vouchers were an amazing hit!

Thanks to Maria

Trivia

As a team leader we actually came up with trivia’s which has sense and informative type for them to be more productive the moment that we don’t have calls on queue. I asked my agent to bring more trivia’s as much as possible. We do it it in this way, if our shift is 10-7am so I started to open trivia’s at 1am and 4am, its like a normal conversation but you can get more ideas and develop the level of communication strongly. Sometimes I surprise them with exams base on the accounts that they are dialing. It depends to you as a team or a staff so that your agent will be productive on the floor.

Thanks to Anonymous

Mini Candy Bars in a Covered Box

I have a small staff of 10, and this summer we did mini candy bars in a covered box. For every sale over a certain dollar amount they could dig for a bar. Some bars had dollars wrapped around them. They loved it

Thanks to SamIam

Popular Games

I have about 6 cold callers in my office. Popular games are:

• “Joker Poker” – For every order you get to pick 1 card. Jokers are wild. Whoever has the best hand at the end of the week wins.
• “Battleship”
• “Candyland”
• “Hot potato- whoever ends with it wins a prize.
• “Horse Races”
• “Dice” – Set up a numbered board with prizes for each #. Whatever the total of the rolled dice is – they get that prize.
• “Balloon Pop” Set up each desk with 5 or so balloons. For each sale you can pop another person’s balloon. Whoever has the most at the end of the week wins.
• “Bingo”
• “wheel of fortune”
• “Blackjack” – If you beat the dealer (me) you get extra money!
• “yachtzee”

And I always try to play holiday type games. For example on Easter – I put out eggs with money amounts in them. You can pick an egg for each sale. You can do the same thing for valentines day with hearts, etc.

Thanks to Allison

Steal the Egg

For teams of 5-20 people one I found works wells is like the children game steal the egg

• Each sales rep has a basket with 5 Easter eggs on their desk.
• When they make an upsell or cross sell they can steal and egg from someone else.
• The person who wins will.
• Most like not the highest performer so all staff are kept engaged until the last moment.
• The prize I was the team member who had the most amount of eggs after 4days got to go home two hours early one day and I would do their job answering calls for them.

Thanks to Harmony

One Big Month Long Game and a Few Smaller Ones

I try and have one big month long game for my team and a few smaller ones inside the month. The next one we are doing is a horse race. Our agents do sales and tech support. We have a giant horse track on the wall and every day they move their horse ahead one square per goal they meet. They have 3 goals per day and a few “water hazards” and boost questions worth +1 square. When they are neck and neck with another agent the competition really kicks in!

I absolutely LOVE the auction idea and will put that in place soon.

Thanks to TMY

 “5 in 15”

For a very quick energiser, try “5 in 15”. Randomly approach members of your team and ask them to come up with 5 examples of a specific subject in 15 seconds. For example, “John, you have 15 seconds to give me 5 types of root vegetable”.
It’s more difficult than you would think, as the short time scale will pressurize people and they’ll go blank, much to the amusement of their colleagues. If they’re successful, I have found a single sweet (like a haribo or Hershey’s kisses) is more than enough reward, as they are already basking in the glow of smugness for being so quick-thinking!
The list of subjects is practically infinite, ranging from soap opera stars, films starring Brad Pitt, ways to cook a potato to things that are more specific to your workplace. The names of 5 Directors of the company, 5 products you sell or 5 types of insurance policy. (These subjects tend to be seen as more boring though!)

Thanks to PJ

Spin Your Money

The concept is as games as Wheel of fortune, you just need to put in $$ figure as small as 10k & as big as 1mil, you can also put miss one round, or extra spin for full 1week attendance, up to your imagination. You need set a min target of sales number to be entitle to spin the wheel, exp : 4 (1 spin) 6 (2 spin) 7^(3 spin).
Staff to collect the amount till end of the game & AUCTION TIME will be conduct by you… & you can start the with crazy $$ exp to auction a snack u can start with 1 mil.. its fun when you see ppl are crazy in finishing all the available amount & buying a snack for 1.5 mil..
Enjoy doing it..

Thanks to Nadjiha

Run Sales Competitions

There are some awesome ideas here. I currently run a small contact centre where we don’t sell anything over phone – instead we make appointments (Motor industry). Love the catch phrase idea – we do something similar here where we come up with a phrase and whoever mentions the phrase first/most times within the call wins a prize.

I also run sales competitions over a 6 week period where I save the incentive $$ and have a big prize up for grabs (Flight centre vouchers/trip to Fiji etc)which really motivates the team. I generally will only do two of these types of competitions per year.

We also do theme days ie Mothers day where we decorate the centre and dress up day (Come dressed as your mum etc) with “Go home early vouchers” or small cash incentive as the prize.

Another idea is for the person that sells the most for the day/week/month wins a “Boss will work for you” voucher. This means that the staff member can go home 30 mins early and the boss will continue your work for you. Its a fun way as the boss to get back on the phones and keep grounded and also rewards the staff member.

Thanks to Amy

Small but Fun Filled Games

Something like “Dress your Boss” or “Tongue Twisters” are small but fun filled games and also gets involvement across the board

Thanks to Minesh

Raffle Ticket Game

One game my team really enjoy is the raffle ticket game, firstly you to grid out 100 squares in those squares you put different prizes from sweets, time off to vouchers really anything you want, over the top of each of the squares you fix a raffle ticket 1 to 100(If you have a small team you can do less squares) the corresponding raffle ticket you put in a box/bag when a team members wins an order they pull a raffle ticket they then win the prize behind that number on the board. Depending on the prizes you have given this can cause great team sprit. My team love it when I set the board up with time off in varying amounts from 60 minutes down to 1 minute, the 1 minute causes great laughter when won.

Thanks to Yvonne

Fun Call Center Games!

You’d be surprised at what will motivate your team!

1. Steal the Balloon Game (You’d be surprised how hard people will work once you’ve stolen their balloon!) Hang 7-10 balloons at a designated area. For every sale, the rep will steal a balloon. Once all the balloons are stolen from the designated area, the reps will start stealing from each other. The rep with the most balloons at the end of the day, wins!
2. Dot, Dot, Square! Draw dots on a white board. For every sale made, the rep gets to draw a line. After 4 lines have been drawn, the rep will write their name in the square. The rep with the most squares at the end of the day, wins!
3. Divide your team into 2 groups. Give each group a phrase to spell. For every sale, the rep will get to add a letter. Each group that spells the phrase by the end of the day, wins! I always play this when someone has a birthday. You would not believe how hard people will work to spell “Happy Birthday Mark!” (The letters can be written on a white board OR hung with push pins on a bulletin board.)
4. Buy a roll of admission tickets at Wal-Mart. For every sale the rep makes they are entered into a drawing for a casual pass! The rep whose name is drawn out, wins!
5. The Sunshine Game – “Wherever you go, always bring your own sunshine.” Every team member has a black cloud hanging at the cubicle. To rid yourself of the black cloud, you must make a sale. Each person who ends the day without a black cloud looming over them, wins!
6. Divide your entire team into pairs. The pairs will be compete against each other to have the most sales by the end of the day.
7. Divide your group into 2 teams. Set a goal for the number of sales to be achieved. For example: Each team will work together for the entire week to reach 100 referrals. Individually, you’ll each need 5 referrals a day to achieve your goal. Each team that reaches their goal of 100 referrals by the end of the week, will win an ice cream party!
8. Do you have a TV & DVD player at work? Reward your team with a movie! Buy tickets. Set a goal for the number of tickets your team will need to attend the movie. Make it a month long game! For example: 5 sales = 1 ticket, 100 in quality = 5 tickets, Perfect Attendance = 1 ticket, etc.
9. Purchase the game Catch Phrase! EVERYONE loves this game! For every teammate that meets their monthly goal, they’ll be attending GAME HOUR.

Thanks to Lily

Playing Poker

I run a small call centre, there is only 6 staff. At the moment we are playing Poker. Certain upsells get a card, at the end of the month whoever has the best hand wins. The trick is, that you could have 10 cards so the more cards you have the better your chance.. I am limited to a very small budget but it works a treat.

I have also done a trip around the world. Certain upsells earnt certain points, the points were used to buy trips around to other countries. Whoever does the world trip first wins the grand prize.

Thanks to Linda

Connect 6

I adapted connect 4 into connect 6. Use a large wall chart with 2 inch circles 12 across & 9 down. Every sale the rep places a personalised, individually coloured disc on a circle. There cannot be an empty circle below as gravity dictates disc drop to the bottom. First rep with six virtical, horizontal or diagonal wins a small prize. Most small wins in a month wins the grand prize. They cannot save up sales an post several at once.

Thanks to Dennis

New Ideas

Yesterday I stuck post-its on the wall with numbers and every sale my team got to pick a number which had a prize and there were 5 STAR prizes hidden.
Today we did “Its a Steal” we had 4 teams 4 and each team had vouchers which could be stolen from another team every time a sale was made.. team with the most vouchers won.. real fun.
I thinking about a “Deal or No Deal” concept next week.. I’ll let you know what I come up with

Thanks to Sanjay

A Few for Generating Sales Leads

Hi All, I run a sales floor of about 20 and have a few for generating sales leads;

5 Lives – Everyone in my office sits in pods of two facing each other, I put 5 helium balloons in between each desk and for every lead they achieve as a team they can go and pop one of the other pods balloons – a prize for the team who pops 2 first, a prize for eliminating a team and a grand daddy prize for last team standing…

High or Low – Get some giant cards and for every 2 leads produced you get to play a round of high or lower… save the games up and finish the day slightly early so you can get all the team round shouting for “higher” or “lower”.. always good for a laugh.. have the theme tune on loop in the background…

Thanks to Adrian

Simple Little Games

I’m a manager in a customer services team in an insurance call centre in the UK- I’m always struggling to find ways of keeping people focussed, happy, and excited. It’s really important in a call centre as it’s usually a demanding, dry, often dull experience which can demote even the hardiest of people.
I love simple little games to keep us all in the mood on a Monday morning or rainy day.
This one works really well.

P-O-T-B-L-A-C-K

Simply write ‘pot black’ (or another phrase) in the middle of a piece of paper and hand a copy to each member of your team, each time a handler takes a call from someone who has a registration or postcode starting with P, O, T, B, L, etc…. they cross one off, the one who completes the sentence or phrase gets to leave 10 mins before their shift end.
Another game which can work well purely to promote fun in a dry call enter environment is

Catch Phrase

You start by writing a list. This can be common catchphrases and quirky anecdotes or even song titles down and the person who manages to find the best way to sneak it into a call wins.
I once had to try and say…’I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to be a lion’ and even sang to a customer down the phone. This is a great game and really keeps us going. I plan on doing a Christmas-song titles catchphrase game for mid December onwards.
Imagine how funny and cheesy it is to hear someone saying they’ve ‘Been dreaming of a white Christmas for months.’ Be careful to think of the implications of what is being said to the customer/client though, if you’re not, you could end up with a poor service issue.
Another is…

(Product name) ~BOB.

We’re targeted on selling a particular product at the moment… Vehicle Breakdown Recovery Service.
I brought in a garden gnome named him BREAKDON~BOB and said that every time someone makes a sale they get to let him live on your desk. The person who finishes the day with him still on their desk gets a prize.

If anybody has anymore ideas please please post them. It’s little nuggets like these that make such a big difference.

Thanks to Dan

Prize Ideas

PICK A PRIZE Go to the Dollar Store & pick a bunch of prizes….Set up a table and let them pick a prize every time they get a sale….etc.

BINGO BANGO BONGO
Fill up 3 Envelopes with a prize or cash. Label them Bingo, Bango, Bongo. Determine how they get an envelope. Once they are all out they steal them from each other all shift. Whoever has envelope at last call opens it and wins prize!!

MINI AUCTION
Let them earn Fake $$ all week/month long. Auction off prizes at the end!

PICK A SUCKER
Put dots on the bottom of suckers and if they pick one with a dot they win something.

MYSTERY PRIZE
This is one of my favourites. They have no idea what they need to do to win!!! Its a mystery. Once the shift has ended the envelope is opened and the person who accomplished the goal the best wins!

Thanks to Brooke

Hit Their Own Target

I’m a canvasser get me out of here , take their own personal goal for the shift and when you have all the numbers in , tell them as they hit their own target they can leave the shift

Thanks to Andrew

Sales Pinata

I have used a sales pinata to great effect.
Stuff it with lots of small prizes and at each sales meeting the reps who made sales the day before get a wack.
Make sure you have room for this so no one gets hurt. I find it not only encourages sales but also team bonding as everyone gees the others on so they can all get in the free for all when the goodies come out

Thanks to NickD

Pass the Parcel

Very simple game, every time sales staff get a sale they get to open a layer of the parcel. use post it notes as corisponding prizes. we use things such as energy drinks, little bags of chips or small choc bar, maybe even some boobie prizes.
We sometimes will get bottles of wine and beer and put single bottles as prizes.

Cheap and works a treat

Thanks to Anthony

Motivaids

There is a brand new solution to this problem. I was a sales manager for many years and I had to develop sales incentive games to motivate my employees. It was always time consuming and although they worked very well they were at best semi professional looking.
Motivaids are a professionally produced game board which acts as a visual aid and uses a patent pending random reward system as well as an overall contest to keep sales people motivated.
There are four different designs,

• THE HEAT IS ON which is a thermostat
• THE RACE TO THE WINNER’S CIRCLE which is a road race
• THE KING OF THE MOUNTAIN, which has sales people climbing to a peak
• and THE RIDE TO VICTORY which is a horse race.

These are so inexpensive and easy to use, they just make sense.

Thanks to Ace

Draw a Grid

Draw a grid on a dry eraser board. Letters on one side, numbers on the other. Depending on the number of reps, you want to have many more boxes than reps. “Hide” prizes that the manager has predetermined. For example, a rep makes a sale and gets to pick a box. Under box 3d there could be a small cash prize, an extra break, a snack etc. You can play it two ways. Reward the pick right away, or leave the names in the boxes until the contest ends and reward reps then. Make sure the manager has chosen the winning boxes ahead of time and has written the winners down so reps know everything is fair.

Thanks to Steven

Bingo Game

Try a Bingo Game. If your call center is anything like ours, we take calls from all over the U.S. Create a bingo card. Put a variety of states on the card. One state for each square. Obviously, there will be states more apt to place orders than others so fill the card up with those states, but put a couple of tough ones in there such as Utah, New Mexico, Hawaii, etc. to make it exciting. Also, under each state put an area where they can write down the Sales Order#. For every order they take, they look on their bingo card. If the order is from New York and they have New York on their bingo card, they write in the Sales Order#. You can play traditional bingo where the player must have 5 or 4 squares filled in with Sales Order#’s including a free space in a row, or you can play other versions such as 4 corners, postage stamp, etc.

This is a great way to keep the excitement up for the day not to mention improving number of calls answered.

Thanks to Chris

Toss the Boss

I play a game called Toss the Boss. One day a week, for every sale that an agent makes I give them an extra imaginary $3. They’re more than welcome to take the $3 and add it to their bonus for the day. However, they can also gamble and ‘Toss the Boss’. We flip a coin, and if they guess heads or tails correctly they get $5 instead of the $3, if they get it wrong, they only get $1. Innovatively, everyone plays, but it’s optional and it ensures that there is always a reward. The staff love it and it becomes a really big and enjoyable battle between the sales reps and myself. They all gang up and want everyone to get the $5 and beat the boss. Great for team building and reward giving; a cheap game that has a big effect.

Thanks to Owen

 Marketing Incentive Program

There are so many different options that can be implemented to encourage fun and friendly competition. You can pretty well take any card game or board game and make it a marketing incentive program. For example draw scrabble tiles for each sale and then the person that can come up with the best word at the end of the contest wins a prize.

I have ton’s of ideas and have successfully run an outbound call center on a limited budget for 10 years.

Thanks to Isaac

We have lots of ideas here https://www.callcentrehelper.com/tag/games

Author: Jonty Pearce