Contact centre solutions provider 1Stream will add gamification technologies as part of its customer offering.
The company describes gamification as the use of game mechanics and experience design to digitally engage and motivate people to achieve their goals.
1Stream will provide the gamification portal that collates all the information from user activity. This is used to set up quests, challenges and achievements and present the information back to players in an incentivising manner, says 1Stream.
Typical game elements may include achievement badges, quests and special events, the ability to advance to higher levels, increase public ranking and social sharing.
"Gamification is about applying elements of game design to everyday work experience to make it more interesting and engaging," says 1Stream director, Bruce von Maltitz. "In the call centre context, it gives managers a new tool for managing the workforce."
According to Von Maltitz, call centres manage various metrics that give an indication of the agents' and organisation's performance. Therefore, by using gamification, managers can engage employees in new and exciting ways to measure and improve individual performance areas.
Game dynamics takes the same statistics contact centres are already tracking, which may seem boring to most of the workforce, and use them to create incentives that are fresh, dynamic and engaging, adds Von Maltitz.
To Von Maltitz, engagement levels of employees are different in large workplace environments. Gamification technology makes it easier for managers to engage with each employee online from their desks.
They can receive feedback on best practice tools, evaluate skills, identify training gaps and see how much interest there is in certain areas. It brings a new interactive element to workplaces and can be used to motivate workers to complete tasks, he adds.
Moreover, it can reduce the amount of down time required for training, by empowering employees to learn at their desks during quiet periods throughout the day. Employees can broaden their skillset by going through training modules they would not usually have access to.
Also, gamification increases knowledge-sharing, teamwork and collaboration, which results in building stronger teams, the company says.
1Stream's model of providing fully hosted and managed call centres means its clients will benefit from gamification technology, says Von Maltitz.
"This is one of the key advantages of choosing hosted services - new options can be turned on or off as they become available, without having to commit to any big upfront investment in new software," he concludes.
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