Contact Center Trends
Why Are Millennials the Driving Force Behind Contact Center Gamification?
By Pascal Leclerc
0 min read
This guest post is written by our AppConnect partners over at nGUVU, who are dedicated to creating a better everyday work experience for contact center agents with gamification and employee engagement.
Millennials Driving Adoption of Contact Center Gamification
One in three working adults is a millennial now and, by 2025, more than 70% of the workforce will be millennials. Being a millennial myself, I will probably be more biased in saying positive things about this generation – they are team players and a part of the workforce that encourage team spirit. It’s a generation that’s not afraid to share their ideas and listen to others. Wherever they are, millennials want their companies to succeed.
There is one very profound distinction that makes this generation different given the period they were born in (between 1980s and 2000s). It’s the first group of people that grew up with video games as a part of their day-to-day lives.
Peer recognition and competitive culture, as well as placing a higher worth on acquiring experiences than material things among the factors that motivate millennials to perform and achieve. It comes as no surprise that traditional workplace motivation strategies fail to resonate with millennials. This challenge causes management to struggle with understanding what motivates them and keeps them engaged in order to help them achieve their objectives.
To highlight the power of gaming on millenials and other generations consider the following: an event like Gamescom will attract over 350K visitors this year – and this is one of many different conferences in the gaming world community. Many millennials have passed the mark of 10000 hours in playing video games – this is a part of their DNA and a trend that will continue growing – it’s here to stay. Gaming is something that this generation will bring to their new workplace and make it a part of corporate culture. So if you’re a manager, executive, VP… etc. in a contact center or sales department and you feel that engagement with your team is not where it used to be – maybe it’s time to consider a gamification platform for your company.
We’re not going to hide the truth – there are easily a couple of dozen contact center gamification platforms out there between US and Canada market, but at nGUVU, we’ve found a gamification equilibrium. A balance between gamification mechanics, social media & peer recognition functionality, and employee engagement technology blended in one platform. We’ve also placed a layer of artificial intelligence to help us discover new insights and anticipate workforce and performance related risks and opportunities.
It’s important to understand that gamification is not here to replace your CRM, or alter the KPIs, or change the way you track the performance. Gamification is here to deliver a solution that exists in parallel with your corporate structure and processes – a fun and game-like environment that engages your workforce (whether its Millenials or not), creates team spirit and motivates your workforce to achieve their objectives. These are the “variables” that millennial part of your workforce considers critical – even though they might not say it out loud.
Your KPI and performance variables are still there it’s just that your team is now earning points, badges and employees climb the game-like ranking system while achieving good old objectives.
"There is one very profound distinction that makes this generation different given the period they were born in (between 1980s and 2000s). It's the first group of people that grew up with video games as a part of their day-to-day lives. "
Pascal Leclerc, Vice President of Marketing and Product Strategy, nGUVU
They challenge each other or create micro contests. They see each other, win and lose, and cheer for their champions, thus becoming a part of a very social environment. Many of them are not interested in a $ game or a gadget prize at the end of the day – this becomes their sport, place to interact with colleagues, build a team, and show their success.
Apart from employee engagement, performance monitoring automation, and a way to motivate your workforce – gamification platform offers other significant advantages that are worth considering. In case of nGUVU – an artificial intelligence layer that helps you figure out and foresee things that are impossible to catch. For example, workforce attrition risks, peak performance periods for employees, better dynamic goals for agents, and more. A test or a quiz module that allows you to identify areas where your workforce needs more training. Functionality that allows management create per dynamic employee goals or team challenges.
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