Gamification has quickly attracted a large and loyal following because of its proven ability to improve engagement. Despite this, it is frequently misunderstood. This whitepaper explains how game mechanics consistently help reduce attrition whilst driving productivity and employee engagement.
Companies fiddle constantly with their incentive plans and sales executives are always looking for ingenious ways to motivate their teams. If sales targets are missed, they blame the sales compensation plan and start over. Meanwhile, The finance organization views the comp plan as an expense to manage. That’s not
surprising: Sales force compensation represents the single largest marketing
investment for most B2B companies. So naturally finance tries to ensure that comp
plans have cost-control measures designed into them. Additionally, many companies
respond to cost-cutting pressure from the finance department with incentives that
backfire. More often than not, controls encourage salespeople to spend time with
customers according to the company’s internal needs, rather than when the customer
is ready to buy.
Designing an Indirect Sales Incentive Program: Defining Your Strategy Hawk Incentives
Companies selling through indirect channel partners often rely on incentive programs to reward sales and other behaviors. These program have many labels: SPIF programs, Rebates, MDF, Opportunity Registration more. Despite the pervasive use of these programs, many channel managers are struggling with and understanding of which programs are the most effective, and have a difficult time providing evidence of true program ROI.
This webinar is for sales and marketing personnel who are tasked with designing and managing incentive programs to improve effectiveness from their indirect sales channels, regardless of industry.
Companies have become savvy customers; they have often determined the solution and the supplier they need, and the price they are willing to pay, before the salesperson enters the scene. In this competitive environment, the premium on finding, training, motivating and retaining star performers has never been higher.
Because firms only measure past sales performance, they have limited insight into how a salesperson will do going forward and what types of training and incentives
will be most effective. Failing to forecast a salesperson’s future value can lead to costly misallocation of training and incentive dollars. Many firms overvalue their poor performers and undervalue their stars, which might lead to undervalued top salespeople to slip trough their fingers and into competitors’ arms. This article illustrates a novel method for measuring a salesperson’s future profitability to the firm. Future performance is linked to specific types of training and incentives and show how those investments can dramatically boost revenue.
Social networks are critical in sales. Companies and salespeople can improve
performance significantly by understanding the interplay among the different webs
of customers, leads and colleagues they develop.
The sales process can be represented as four distinct stages, which all require a
different set of abilities and network configuration. If salespeople and managers
understand how networks function, they can pinpoint the most effective network
configuration for each stage of a sale and take the actions necessary to create it and
outshine competitors. In each stage of the sales process, the salesperson’s efforts
come down to two essential and complementary types of network-management
actions: managing the information flow and coordinating the efforts of contacts. This
article offers a framework for systematically managing different social networks, by
matching the network to the task. The article also presents three levers managers
can use to encourage salespeople to integrate the network-based view and make the
best possible use of social networks.
This is the world of the sales machine, built to outsell less focused, less disciplined competitors through brute efficiency and world-class tools and training. Recently
sales has been caught off guard by dramatic changes in customers’ buying behavior and sales performance has grown increasingly erratic. The very approaches that made the sales machine so effective now make selling harder. The sales machine is stalling. Leaders must abandon their fixation on process compliance and embrace a flexible approach to selling driven by sales reps’ reliance on insight and judgment.
Companies fiddle constantly with their incentive plans and sales executives are always looking for ingenious ways to motivate their teams. If sales targets are missed, they blame the sales compensation plan and start over. Meanwhile, The finance organization views the comp plan as an expense to manage. That’s not
surprising: Sales force compensation represents the single largest marketing
investment for most B2B companies. So naturally finance tries to ensure that comp
plans have cost-control measures designed into them. Additionally, many companies
respond to cost-cutting pressure from the finance department with incentives that
backfire. More often than not, controls encourage salespeople to spend time with
customers according to the company’s internal needs, rather than when the customer
is ready to buy.
Designing an Indirect Sales Incentive Program: Defining Your Strategy Hawk Incentives
Companies selling through indirect channel partners often rely on incentive programs to reward sales and other behaviors. These program have many labels: SPIF programs, Rebates, MDF, Opportunity Registration more. Despite the pervasive use of these programs, many channel managers are struggling with and understanding of which programs are the most effective, and have a difficult time providing evidence of true program ROI.
This webinar is for sales and marketing personnel who are tasked with designing and managing incentive programs to improve effectiveness from their indirect sales channels, regardless of industry.
Companies have become savvy customers; they have often determined the solution and the supplier they need, and the price they are willing to pay, before the salesperson enters the scene. In this competitive environment, the premium on finding, training, motivating and retaining star performers has never been higher.
Because firms only measure past sales performance, they have limited insight into how a salesperson will do going forward and what types of training and incentives
will be most effective. Failing to forecast a salesperson’s future value can lead to costly misallocation of training and incentive dollars. Many firms overvalue their poor performers and undervalue their stars, which might lead to undervalued top salespeople to slip trough their fingers and into competitors’ arms. This article illustrates a novel method for measuring a salesperson’s future profitability to the firm. Future performance is linked to specific types of training and incentives and show how those investments can dramatically boost revenue.
Social networks are critical in sales. Companies and salespeople can improve
performance significantly by understanding the interplay among the different webs
of customers, leads and colleagues they develop.
The sales process can be represented as four distinct stages, which all require a
different set of abilities and network configuration. If salespeople and managers
understand how networks function, they can pinpoint the most effective network
configuration for each stage of a sale and take the actions necessary to create it and
outshine competitors. In each stage of the sales process, the salesperson’s efforts
come down to two essential and complementary types of network-management
actions: managing the information flow and coordinating the efforts of contacts. This
article offers a framework for systematically managing different social networks, by
matching the network to the task. The article also presents three levers managers
can use to encourage salespeople to integrate the network-based view and make the
best possible use of social networks.
This is the world of the sales machine, built to outsell less focused, less disciplined competitors through brute efficiency and world-class tools and training. Recently
sales has been caught off guard by dramatic changes in customers’ buying behavior and sales performance has grown increasingly erratic. The very approaches that made the sales machine so effective now make selling harder. The sales machine is stalling. Leaders must abandon their fixation on process compliance and embrace a flexible approach to selling driven by sales reps’ reliance on insight and judgment.
Looking to pump some excitement into your sales team,? Sales incentives, sales contests, increase sales, increase revenue, to your company. Your sales team will love these promotion ideas to help get them excited about winning new accounts.
Using Goals, Goal Metrics and Rollup Queries in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011C5 Insight
The Dynamics CRM 2011 Goals feature makes it easy to set business Goals, assign Goals to individual teams or employees, and track and measure results against your targets. This presentation will show you how to create, assign, track and measure Goals in Dynamics CRM 2011 and Online.
Pressures on margins are relentless. The need to reduce costs is constant. No business can afford to take its eyes off these fundamentals. For most companies the costs of employing people are greater than for any other single
resource. Effective management demands that managers strive for optimum performance at least cost.
Our approach to reward is based on this essential proposition. We focus on making certain that strategies for the pay and benefits of all employees are directed at adding value and are concentrated on the bottom line. This means the design and implementation of robust systems for pay that aim to reduce costs and achieve better returns from firms’ investment in people.
The field of performance management is experiencing a transformation. But for compensation professionals, these changes can be concerning as they can directly impact processes used to allocate pay and rewards. Learn how companies are overcoming these challenges and are successfully managing compensation in this changing performance management climate.
Using Gamification to Build a Passionate and Quality-Driven Software Developm...Cognizant
Gamification techniques are increasingly playing a huge role in software development - to motivate team members, reduce the cost of quality, reward high achievers and more. We suggest you begin software gamifying with project management, innovation, the software-development training process and delivery.
E Book - Gamification Apps for Employee EngagementNextBee Media
Gamification is categorized as the utilization of diversion mechanics and progression to drive game-like engagement in a non-game setting. Gamification is the utilization of game-like ascribes to drive game like player conduct in a non-diversion setting.
Want to know more about gamification? Wondering if a gamified sales program could boost revenue? This guide has the answers. We'll show you how you can use gamification to motivate your office, engage your customers, and increase sales across the board.
Find more info at:
http://gamification.technologyadvice.com/
Gamification for Insurers: A Practitioner’s PerspectiveCognizant
Gamification for insurance companies employs traditional game elements – including badges, leaderboards, points, and quests – to improve organizational efficiency and increase customer engagement. Gamification can function as a catalyst for meeting the requirements of a real-time digital enterprise – from underwriting, account management, training, and billing, to marketing, sales, and customer self-service.
Reinventing Customer, Employee Engagement Through GamificationCognizant
Abundant gamification examples from non-insurance companies offer insights into how insurers can employ gamification techniques to motivate their workforce, build customer loyalty, enhance product development and much more.
Looking to pump some excitement into your sales team,? Sales incentives, sales contests, increase sales, increase revenue, to your company. Your sales team will love these promotion ideas to help get them excited about winning new accounts.
Using Goals, Goal Metrics and Rollup Queries in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011C5 Insight
The Dynamics CRM 2011 Goals feature makes it easy to set business Goals, assign Goals to individual teams or employees, and track and measure results against your targets. This presentation will show you how to create, assign, track and measure Goals in Dynamics CRM 2011 and Online.
Pressures on margins are relentless. The need to reduce costs is constant. No business can afford to take its eyes off these fundamentals. For most companies the costs of employing people are greater than for any other single
resource. Effective management demands that managers strive for optimum performance at least cost.
Our approach to reward is based on this essential proposition. We focus on making certain that strategies for the pay and benefits of all employees are directed at adding value and are concentrated on the bottom line. This means the design and implementation of robust systems for pay that aim to reduce costs and achieve better returns from firms’ investment in people.
The field of performance management is experiencing a transformation. But for compensation professionals, these changes can be concerning as they can directly impact processes used to allocate pay and rewards. Learn how companies are overcoming these challenges and are successfully managing compensation in this changing performance management climate.
Using Gamification to Build a Passionate and Quality-Driven Software Developm...Cognizant
Gamification techniques are increasingly playing a huge role in software development - to motivate team members, reduce the cost of quality, reward high achievers and more. We suggest you begin software gamifying with project management, innovation, the software-development training process and delivery.
E Book - Gamification Apps for Employee EngagementNextBee Media
Gamification is categorized as the utilization of diversion mechanics and progression to drive game-like engagement in a non-game setting. Gamification is the utilization of game-like ascribes to drive game like player conduct in a non-diversion setting.
Want to know more about gamification? Wondering if a gamified sales program could boost revenue? This guide has the answers. We'll show you how you can use gamification to motivate your office, engage your customers, and increase sales across the board.
Find more info at:
http://gamification.technologyadvice.com/
Gamification for Insurers: A Practitioner’s PerspectiveCognizant
Gamification for insurance companies employs traditional game elements – including badges, leaderboards, points, and quests – to improve organizational efficiency and increase customer engagement. Gamification can function as a catalyst for meeting the requirements of a real-time digital enterprise – from underwriting, account management, training, and billing, to marketing, sales, and customer self-service.
Reinventing Customer, Employee Engagement Through GamificationCognizant
Abundant gamification examples from non-insurance companies offer insights into how insurers can employ gamification techniques to motivate their workforce, build customer loyalty, enhance product development and much more.
Whitepaper: Increasing Performance With Data-Driven Insight, Not SpendingIconixx
Are you losing money through your incentive compensation program? Rather than relying on forecasts to maintain their trajectory for growth, companies need to address key challenges that may limit their future revenue. By focusing on improving their approach toward rewards and recognitions, companies can get closer to generating the positive outcomes they aim for in their forecasts.
Connect Marketing to Revenue With Performance MeasurementObservePoint
As your company becomes increasingly data-driven, it can be easy to get caught up in markers of success such as leads, bookings, or site visits. But what about the most important metric to your business—revenue?
In this tip sheet, Connect Marketing to Revenue with Performance Measurement, you'll learn how to:
- Gather clean, complete data
- Bridge the gap between marketing, sales, and service
- Increase the scope and capabilities of your attribution strategy
Dev Dives: Train smarter, not harder – active learning and UiPath LLMs for do...UiPathCommunity
💥 Speed, accuracy, and scaling – discover the superpowers of GenAI in action with UiPath Document Understanding and Communications Mining™:
See how to accelerate model training and optimize model performance with active learning
Learn about the latest enhancements to out-of-the-box document processing – with little to no training required
Get an exclusive demo of the new family of UiPath LLMs – GenAI models specialized for processing different types of documents and messages
This is a hands-on session specifically designed for automation developers and AI enthusiasts seeking to enhance their knowledge in leveraging the latest intelligent document processing capabilities offered by UiPath.
Speakers:
👨🏫 Andras Palfi, Senior Product Manager, UiPath
👩🏫 Lenka Dulovicova, Product Program Manager, UiPath
Observability Concepts EVERY Developer Should Know -- DeveloperWeek Europe.pdfPaige Cruz
Monitoring and observability aren’t traditionally found in software curriculums and many of us cobble this knowledge together from whatever vendor or ecosystem we were first introduced to and whatever is a part of your current company’s observability stack.
While the dev and ops silo continues to crumble….many organizations still relegate monitoring & observability as the purview of ops, infra and SRE teams. This is a mistake - achieving a highly observable system requires collaboration up and down the stack.
I, a former op, would like to extend an invitation to all application developers to join the observability party will share these foundational concepts to build on:
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
Generative AI Deep Dive: Advancing from Proof of Concept to ProductionAggregage
Join Maher Hanafi, VP of Engineering at Betterworks, in this new session where he'll share a practical framework to transform Gen AI prototypes into impactful products! He'll delve into the complexities of data collection and management, model selection and optimization, and ensuring security, scalability, and responsible use.
State of ICS and IoT Cyber Threat Landscape Report 2024 previewPrayukth K V
The IoT and OT threat landscape report has been prepared by the Threat Research Team at Sectrio using data from Sectrio, cyber threat intelligence farming facilities spread across over 85 cities around the world. In addition, Sectrio also runs AI-based advanced threat and payload engagement facilities that serve as sinks to attract and engage sophisticated threat actors, and newer malware including new variants and latent threats that are at an earlier stage of development.
The latest edition of the OT/ICS and IoT security Threat Landscape Report 2024 also covers:
State of global ICS asset and network exposure
Sectoral targets and attacks as well as the cost of ransom
Global APT activity, AI usage, actor and tactic profiles, and implications
Rise in volumes of AI-powered cyberattacks
Major cyber events in 2024
Malware and malicious payload trends
Cyberattack types and targets
Vulnerability exploit attempts on CVEs
Attacks on counties – USA
Expansion of bot farms – how, where, and why
In-depth analysis of the cyber threat landscape across North America, South America, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East
Why are attacks on smart factories rising?
Cyber risk predictions
Axis of attacks – Europe
Systemic attacks in the Middle East
Download the full report from here:
https://sectrio.com/resources/ot-threat-landscape-reports/sectrio-releases-ot-ics-and-iot-security-threat-landscape-report-2024/
Key Trends Shaping the Future of Infrastructure.pdfCheryl Hung
Keynote at DIGIT West Expo, Glasgow on 29 May 2024.
Cheryl Hung, ochery.com
Sr Director, Infrastructure Ecosystem, Arm.
The key trends across hardware, cloud and open-source; exploring how these areas are likely to mature and develop over the short and long-term, and then considering how organisations can position themselves to adapt and thrive.
Le nuove frontiere dell'AI nell'RPA con UiPath Autopilot™UiPathCommunity
In questo evento online gratuito, organizzato dalla Community Italiana di UiPath, potrai esplorare le nuove funzionalità di Autopilot, il tool che integra l'Intelligenza Artificiale nei processi di sviluppo e utilizzo delle Automazioni.
📕 Vedremo insieme alcuni esempi dell'utilizzo di Autopilot in diversi tool della Suite UiPath:
Autopilot per Studio Web
Autopilot per Studio
Autopilot per Apps
Clipboard AI
GenAI applicata alla Document Understanding
👨🏫👨💻 Speakers:
Stefano Negro, UiPath MVPx3, RPA Tech Lead @ BSP Consultant
Flavio Martinelli, UiPath MVP 2023, Technical Account Manager @UiPath
Andrei Tasca, RPA Solutions Team Lead @NTT Data
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Today, after several years of existence, an extremely active community and an ultra-dynamic ecosystem, Kubernetes has established itself as the de facto standard in container orchestration. Thanks to a wide range of managed services, it has never been so easy to set up a ready-to-use Kubernetes cluster.
However, this ease of use means that the subject of security in Kubernetes is often left for later, or even neglected. This exposes companies to significant risks.
In this talk, I'll show you step-by-step how to secure your Kubernetes cluster for greater peace of mind and reliability.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
PHP Frameworks: I want to break free (IPC Berlin 2024)Ralf Eggert
In this presentation, we examine the challenges and limitations of relying too heavily on PHP frameworks in web development. We discuss the history of PHP and its frameworks to understand how this dependence has evolved. The focus will be on providing concrete tips and strategies to reduce reliance on these frameworks, based on real-world examples and practical considerations. The goal is to equip developers with the skills and knowledge to create more flexible and future-proof web applications. We'll explore the importance of maintaining autonomy in a rapidly changing tech landscape and how to make informed decisions in PHP development.
This talk is aimed at encouraging a more independent approach to using PHP frameworks, moving towards a more flexible and future-proof approach to PHP development.
The Art of the Pitch: WordPress Relationships and SalesLaura Byrne
Clients don’t know what they don’t know. What web solutions are right for them? How does WordPress come into the picture? How do you make sure you understand scope and timeline? What do you do if sometime changes?
All these questions and more will be explored as we talk about matching clients’ needs with what your agency offers without pulling teeth or pulling your hair out. Practical tips, and strategies for successful relationship building that leads to closing the deal.
SAP Sapphire 2024 - ASUG301 building better apps with SAP Fiori.pdfPeter Spielvogel
Building better applications for business users with SAP Fiori.
• What is SAP Fiori and why it matters to you
• How a better user experience drives measurable business benefits
• How to get started with SAP Fiori today
• How SAP Fiori elements accelerates application development
• How SAP Build Code includes SAP Fiori tools and other generative artificial intelligence capabilities
• How SAP Fiori paves the way for using AI in SAP apps
2. Gamification is an innovation that has quickly
attracted a large and loyal following because of
its proven ability to improve engagement.
Despite its rapidly growing adoption,
gamification is frequently misunderstood and
mischaracterized as a consumer marketing
technique. In fact, the use cases and benefits are
much broader. From teams in sales to customer
service to collections and more applications,
game mechanics have consistently helped
reduce attrition and absenteeism and increase
job satisfaction and productivity.
Gamification has proven especially effective at improving employee performance and business results at contact centers.
Benefits include increased revenues from higher sales/collections close rates, improved compliance, faster employee onboarding
by making training more fun and effective, and improved employee retention. When contact center agents are more engaged at
work, enterprises can optimize engagement with customers.
Businesses are winning with gamification, but the process isn’t all fun and games. Gamification programs need to be driven by
business goals and backed by accurate, objective data and metrics – you can’t have a fair game if you can’t keep score. That is
why interaction analytics are an essential component of contact center gamification programs, and why gamification is a natural
step for organizations that already have interaction analytics in place. Contact center analytics serve as the scorekeeper and
referee that makes gamification successful.
This white paper gives examples of how organizations have used gamification in contact centers and presents best practices for
using gamification to improve contact center performance.
What is Gamification?
A simple, useful definition for “gamification” is the application of game mechanics to non-game environments. “Mechanics” refers
to how the game is structured, for example the rules of play, how points/scores are awarded and how winners are designated.
Rules and points serve to encourage specific behaviors and strategies and discourage others. The concepts can be applied to
business activity to support organizational goals.
It is important to note that games and gamification programs do not have to be structured to produce one winner; everyone
that reaches a specified level of competence or achievement can qualify for an award (think of frequent flyer and other rewards
programs – you don’t have to be the top flier to earn a free flight or other reward). Inclusive games help keep players/employees
motivated after they no longer have a chance to be the overall top performer.
In business, gamification is commonly used as a component of training and e-learning programs. It is also commonly used to
improve employee engagement in a variety of scenarios. The need to improve employee engagement is a leading driver behind
surging enterprise use of gamification. Only 32 percent of U.S. employees are engaged at work, a level that has stagnated
according to the annual Gallup polli
on employee engagement.
3. How Does Gamification Relate to Contact Centers?
The effectiveness for improving engagement is a major reason why many contact centers are adopting or investigating
gamification. Employee engagement is a persistent problem at contact centers, as evidenced by high employee attrition rates.
Other signs that contact center agents are not engaged in their work include:
Flat or declining sales
High abandon rates
Increased customer service complaints
Increased compliance violations
Contact center operators have used gamification to improve agent engagement in general and to achieve many more specific
benefits, such as improving adherence to scripts, raising closing rates for sales and collection activity, reducing risk by improving
compliance with disclosure requirements, and reducing the onboarding time for new agents by making training more effective.
Here are a couple common, effective use cases.
Motivate Agents
Some people are motivated by competition, others by rewards. Either way, gamification provides several avenues to motivate
contact center agents. For example, a leading home security services provider runs frequent sales contests that are based on
gamification principles and are scored using data from its interaction analytics solution.
“Structured contests give us pretty quick engagement from our team members,” says the company’s manager of quality
assurance. “We are able to provide not only rewards, but also to provide information to our call center teams to identify our
best agents.”
One contest that was specifically designed to improve agent engagement featured a tournament-style bracket that set up
head-to-head competition. All calls were monitored and scored by the interaction analytics solution and points were awarded
according to contest rules. The head-to-head competition coincided with the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and continued
until there was a single, overall winner.
Improve Performance in Specific Areas
Contests can be structured so participants can earn points for a variety of activities (e.g. using a pleasant greeting, making
mandatory disclosures early in the call, presenting upsell options, etc.) or to motivate a specific action. For example, the home
security services provider has conducted several activity-specific contests for improving performance on collections accounts
(which resulted in an average increase of $11,600 collected per week), compliance (a 4 percent increase in its compliance scores)
and other activities that related directly to business goals.
Some organizations have identified a pattern to how gamification influenced agent performance. When a new contest would
start, agent performance on the relevant metrics would rise and eventually plateau. Performance would decline immediately
after the contest ended, but then settle at a level higher than where it began, which represents sustainable improvement. The
pattern is depicted in Figure 1 below. Performance scores are on the vertical access and time is shown on the horizontal. Weeks
1 to 4 identify the baseline performance level, weeks 5 through 9 indicate the contest period, and weeks 10 onward represent
the new normal.
4. Best Practices from the Leaders
One of the biggest risks to the success of a contact center gamification program is to treat it as a game. It’s easy to get caught up
in the creative and fun ways gamification can be applied. It’s also tempting to create far-reaching contests that are intended to
encourage many activities and improvements, which makes it hard to maintain focus.
Learn from a leader – Noble Systems is a pioneer and specialist in developing solutions for contact centers. Noble Gamification,
built from the company’s experience in the contact center industry, has helped clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies
to boutique call centers create and implement customized achievement programs. It has established a four-step process for
designing programs:
1. Define goals
2. Apply interaction analytics to identify baseline performance and improvement opportunities
3. Define key performance indicators (KPIs) for the program
4. Identify the appropriate intrinsic (self driven) and extrinsic (external rewards) motivators for agents
Successful gamification is goal oriented, not game oriented – Successful gamification programs are rooted in clear business
goals. The goals should then be quantified by appropriate metrics. Games and contests that are intended to improve employee
engagement and morale will backfire if agents think goals are unrealistic or rules are unclear, so setting the right metrics is an
essential step. Metrics not only need to motivate the desired business goals, they must be easy to understand and objectively
measured (analytics can do the heavy lifting for data collection and scoring) so that employees trust the results.
Be thoughtful about motivation – Equally important to setting the right metrics to measure goals is to find the right motivators
to achieve them. Noble Gamification vice president Brett Brosseau has identified some very important differences in the
best motivational tactics for different generations. For example, he notes that baby boomers are very comfortable with
and accustomed to competitions and are motivated to earn points and rewards. Millennials are more motivated by public
recognition, and Generation X has its own nuances.
One prize does not fit all – Since there is no single best way to motivate all agents, it follows that the incentives that accompany
a contest should be flexible. While everyone likes cash, it is not the only effective incentive. Some employees may be more
motivated by the opportunity to earn paid time off. There are many more incentives that have proven effective, including meals,
merchandise, preferred parking spaces, banners, balloons or other recognition at the workspace, company apparel or gear, etc.
Create clear rules – While motivators and rewards can be flexible, rules, requirements and other contest parameters should be
very clear and consistent. As noted, if agents think rules are unclear, or are being applied inconsistently, they may disengage
from the contest.
Having accurate, objective data about results
can mean the difference between success and
failure with gamification programs. Proper use of
metrics and data provided by interaction analytics
make gamification a truly effective business tool.
Besides enabling games and contests, interaction
analytics provide the visibility that contact center
leaders need to continually monitor and improve
operations. The following section provides more
insight into how leaders are combining gamification
and interaction analytics to get business results.
Figure 1: Gamification Influence on Agent Performance Over Time.
Weeks
Score
5. Set time limits – A contest that goes on indefinitely will lose effectiveness.
Setting a definite start and end time helps raise participation and effort while
the contest is in effect. If a long-term program is needed to meet the business
goal (for example attaining a 5 percent year-over-year improvement in customer
satisfaction ratings), consider conducting a series of consecutive events rather
than one long one. For example, a program intended to raise the customer
satisfaction score for the year could be structured as a series of 12 monthly
contests, or four quarterly ones. Doing so helps keep employees engaged –
they may drop out of contention in one contest, but can be motivated to meet
performance targets and earn incentives when the program resets.
It is important to recognize the end of a program. Ideally the end-of-program
communication will go beyond recognizing top performers and will update all
participants about the results and how the program fared for meeting business
goals. Concluding with a party or briefing is also an excellent opportunity to get
feedback to help make future efforts more effective.
Inspire continued involvement – Contests should include mechanisms to
motivate all participants to stay involved, even after they have little chance
of winning the contest or meeting the minimum performance requirements.
Remember, the point of gamification is to support business goals, not to identify
one employee as a winner. Another way to encourage agents to continue
working toward goals is to group employees into teams, because agents may be
able to achieve at the group level what they can’t do individually.
Providing rewards for meeting performance thresholds is a very good way to
promote continued involvement and keep participants motivated when they
are not among the overall leaders. This structure makes rewards and incentives
available to everyone, because “winning” doesn’t require someone else to lose.
Reward thresholds can be used in combination with more competitive contests.
For example, the home security services company’s bracket-style challenge
produced a single, overall winner, but agents could continue to earn rewards
after they were eliminated by meeting performance thresholds.
Communicate frequently – Maximizing the effectiveness of a gamification
program requires communication before, during and after the contest. Through
consistent communication, organizations can maximize agent participation in a
program, improve buy-in by helping agents understand why the goal or metric
is important, avoid any confusion or hard feelings about unclear rules, and
make motivation more effective by highlighting good performers. “Consistent
communication is probably the most important element of a contest,” says Sollie.
Conclusion
Gamification is a fun and growing resource that can be adapted to improve
contact center performance and agent engagement. While gamification is
flexible, two elements are required to make it successful: clear business goals
and accurate metrics. Interaction analytics can provide the insight and data to
help set goals and measure progress against them. Interaction analytics and
gamification have been used hand-in-hand in many highly successful programs.
“
Gallup sees a clear
divide emerging within the
engage-ment industry. On
one end of the spectrum are
scientifically and experientially
validated approaches that
lead to changes in individual
and business performance,
supported by strategic and
tactical development and
performance solutions that
transform organizational
cultures. Though these
approaches require more
intentionality and investment,
companies that use them are
more likely to see increases in
employee engagement.
At the other end of the
spectrum are invalidated,
unfocused annual surveys...
Technology also makes it
easy to create an ‘employee
survey’ and call it an
engagement program, which
allows a company to fulfill an
apparent organizational need
and ‘check a box.”
Gallup Business Journal
“The Worldwide Employee
Engagement Crisis”
6. About Noble Systems
Noble Systems is a global leader in the customer communications industry. Founded in 1989, we deliver award-winning contact
center solutions for companies across many industries. Our customers value our consultative approach that helps identify
needs, define requirements, set goals and find the right solution for their contact center. Our top-notch support teams assist
customers with implementation, after-sale service, training, support and maintenance.
Our unified suite of inbound, outbound and blended omnichannel contact processing, interaction analytics, resource
management, and compliance tools are built for companies of all sizes. Available in on-premise, cloud or hybrid configurations,
our patented tools help you increase productivity, reduce operating costs and build a better customer and agent experience.
Noble Systems is committed to providing the highest value, most flexible and feature-rich product solutions. We’ll design the
just-right solution for you and deliver unbeatable customer service, effectively guaranteeing your satisfaction. We’ll do more,
we’ll do it better, and we’ll do it for less.
Highlighted by multiple customer and industry achievement awards, Noble Systems has consistently ranked number one in
market leadership and best-in-class solutions, including analysis conducted by Frost & Sullivan and PACE.
Noble Gamification is built from our experience in the contact center industry. We understand what motivates agents and
supervisors – and we know that high employee motivation drives customer satisfaction. Utilizing game mechanics tailored to
each client’s spectrum of employees, our gamification solution maxmizes opportunity for success.
Learn more about
Noble Gamification:
noblegamification.com
i. Gallup “The Worldwide Employee Engagement Crisis”:
http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/188033/worldwide-employee-engagement-crisis.aspx