Offering incentive games is an important tool to utilise when trying to boost employee motivation. The following call centre activities were created to do just so and improve morale in your workplace.
As a follow-up to our Motivational Games feature from February, Matthew Brown explores five more motivational games for call centre staff.
1. The Power Hour
The ‘power hour’ is simple: the agent making the most sales during the chosen hour receives a prize. This type of game can foster a healthy competitive atmosphere.
“We find that sometimes if the mood in the office and gone a bit dead, if there’s a bit of a lull, we use the ‘power hour’ to incentivise our sales activity over the next hour,” said Account Manager Simon Christie.
The game can also be varied to tie in with the call centre’s current work. For example, RSVP is a call centre staffed by professional actors and uses a variety of motivational games to keep the staff motivated. They work with wine suppliers, and the power hour might reward sales of a certain type of wine new to the sales teams. Wine also works well as a prize.
The lift given by the ‘power hour’ can last into an afternoon, and even the next day. The key to the success of the game is to offer a prize, rather than a cash reward.
“To be honest the staff prefer the incentives to be something other than money, like vouchers or free gifts,” said Christie.
2. The Big Picture
Large-scale motivational games are often used at corporate events and away-days. Team-building functions can have great effect on staff morale and can help with strategic motivation. Sometimes a game can help communicate a brand’s values to staff in a more engaging way than in a training session.
A game to inspire the employees of a large information solutions firm with a new brand message – ‘One Team, One Voice, One Vision’ – at a conference for 110 staff, held at a hotel.The game was created by AYMTM.
To do this, a game called ‘The Big Picture’ was devised. The aim of the game was for the staff – divided into teams – to create an artistic masterpiece by painting on small canvases. When all the canvases were put together, they would form an overall ‘Big Picture’. This encouraged teamwork, as the only way to complete the task successfully was by coordinating the small parts of the overall picture to be painted onto each small canvas.
A game like this might be a little messy for the contact centre, but the concept could be adapted to motivate staff in the long term – by engaging them in the company’s values and objectives.
3. On Track Racing
The On Track Racing game can be used to reward agents for their performance level while also adding a fun and competitive element to the incentive. The game is a simple simulation of car racing. Agents earn fuel and time on the track by performing well in their jobs – for example, making a sale may earn them a certain amount of fuel.
At the end of the incentive period – the week, for example – agents then race their cars around the track and compete to cover the most distance with the time and fuel they have earned. Agents who finish in the Top 10 win prizes. The game hinges partly on the skill of the agent in being able to guide the car around the track, but this alone will not win the game if the employee’s performance has not earned them enough fuel and track time.
4. Floating Envelope
Its a very simple game as soon as an agent makes a sale the envelope will move you play the game in 2 hour periods. The more sales you make then obviuosly you stand a better chance of winning. The envelope will only be opened when the two hours is up. Who ever has the envelope is the winner.
You can create your own voucher where there will either be a cellphone or any prizes up for grabs no monetry incentives. You also use a big timer so everyone can see.
Thanks to Nadeem
Have you used any motivational games in your company? How well did they work? Share your experiences
Read 4 Team Building Games for the Contact Centre for more ideas.
Author: Jo Robinson
Published On: 13th Apr 2011 - Last modified: 30th May 2022
Read more about - Call Centre Life, Games, Incentives, Motivation, Staffing
I used the ‘bigger picture’ game for our teambuilding day in November last year. It works really well, but instead of using painting and canvasses we used a large jigsaw puzzle that I had pre-sorted into 4 bags. Each of the 4 teams made up their corner of the puzzle then realised that they had to put them together to make the bigger picture. I would definately recommend it.
Floating Envelope
Its a very simple game as soon as an agent makes a sale the envelope will move you play the game in 2 hour periods. The more sales you make then obviuosly you stand a better chance of winning. The envelope will only be opened when the two hours is up. Who ever has the envelope is the winner.
You can create your own voucher where there will either be a cellphone or any prizes up for grabs no monetry incentives. You also use a big timer so everyone can see.
I work in a smaller call center where only a portion of the calls we take are sales oriented. We hande warranty issues over the products we produce, place and track online orders for our customers, and handle calls for our our smaller wholesale accounts that need anything from general information to assistance in placing smaller orders for their stores. The focus is really mainly on creating a very customer driven and engaging experience as well as being efficient with time so that we’re available to assist as many customers in a day as we can. We have about 3 teams of 10-15 phone reps. Right now, we’ve experienced a lot of positive attrition and have had to, not only hire a lot of new reps, but have had to train the reps we already have in some of our more advanced skillsets. Because we are a bit short staffed and there has been so much new information learned in such a short period of time, I really want to keep my reps motivated. Our reps have weekly goals we strive for that include sales goals, efficiency goals, and quality assessment goals. Recently we have had a lot of games where reps could earn “tokens” as positive incentives for meeting goals or getting customer compliments. This sometimes can put the newer employees at a disadvantage because there is a learning curve and it can take a bit of time out on the floor before a rep is really meeting or exceeding most of the goals we set forth. Since half of my team is new and the other half is more tenured, I decided to level the playing field with a game I call “Beach Ball Blast”. Each team member had been given a “poster” of a beach to hang at their desk as well as a set of 60 paper “beach balls”. Rather than having everyone start out with nothing and earn a beach ball for meeting their goals, I am allowing each rep the chance to “steal” beach balls from their team mates. Each week, I send the reps the results of all the various goals we ask them to strive for. For every goal they meet or exceed, they get to steal a beach ball from another team member. The rep with the most beach balls at the end of the month wins the grand prize. I decided to run the game this way to not only envoke a bit of competitiveness, but to level the playing field for the reps that are new and may still be learning what it takes to meet the goals. On one hand, each rep is encouraged to meet the goals do they have the chance to steal from their team mates. But also, for a rep that is new, they can steal from the tenured rep that is likely to meet more goals if they do choose. It forces them to play strategically. For example a tenured rep may earn a chance to steal 6 beach balls, but a new rep only gets 3. If the new rep steals 3 of their balls from the rep that got to steal 6, then they both really only earned 3 balls. I only just began the game and am eager to see how competitive everyone gets!
Where can i find the tools/website for number 5? that on track racing game? this would be perfect for my Agents to motivate them and push for sales