Description: This traditional customer service experience is process-oriented, tedious, and it leaves customers frustrated and dissatisfied, says Girish Mathrubootham, founder and CEO, FreshDesk.
Source: cio.com
Date: March 3, 2014
FreshDesk uses gamification to incent employees to provide fast, effective and fun customer service for helpdesk ticketing, automation and customer forums, says Mathrubootham. The model for the solution was Apple’s Genius bar, he says.
“Our first thought was, ‘How do we make this more fun and more engaging for the people providing the support?'” Mathrubootham says. “Obviously we wanted happy customers, but what we realized from talking about models like Apple’s is that happiness is contagious.”
If the customer service agents are happy, engaged and invested in delivering quality support, then they will pass that onto customers. And gamification can be a great way to increase this engagement and satisfaction both from an agent and a customer standpoint,” Mathrubootham says. READ REST OF STORY
Questions for discussion:
1. What is gamification and why is it important?
2. What potential applications do you see for gamification and in what industries will this add the greatest value?
Info Systems in Practice 
1. What is gamification and why is it important?
Gamification is taking the process and elements we see in games and adding them to real-world tasks. In this example we see the service industry taking on these elements by offering a points system with there employees and allowing them to level up and reach certain achievements. It is clear to see why it is important; because it works. Once there is a competition added to any type of task, whether it be cleaning too as important as your job, as well as having a clear point system with prizes at each level, people feel more motivated to do so. Making sure that you have the right set of rules in place is important to make sure that there are no loopholes. Yes having quick and efficient service is important but when quantity starts to trump quality, it is time to look at you businesses mission.
2. What potential applications do you see for gamification and in what industries will this add the greatest value?
I believe that the service industry could benefit from this if used the right way. Like I said above, there are some strict guidelines in order for this to work for both the customer and the employee. More specifically, the restaurant industry already uses gamification to get their staff motivated to make sales. They use leaderboards in categories of most rewards cards sold, highest average table, etc. Coupled with a prize, seeing your self in the top spot puts you into a competitive spirit.
Gamification is the process of integrating game mechanics into pre-existing tasks to improve motivation, participation, and engagement among users. Game mechanics can be implemented into websites, information systems, and business processes to improve overall business performance and effectiveness. Games mechanics are those things in games that tend to reward players by giving them points and quantifiable goals based on player performance. Similarly, gamification uses those same game mechanics- rewards and measurable goals based on user performance- to target our intrinsic motivation factors. Business can employ gamification in their information systems to improve the overall productivity of its stakeholders. Collecting and measuring tasks can provide benchmarks for employees to aim for, if they meet or beat the target they will get rewarded through some game mechanic. When applying gamification to customer service, it allows companies to find a new way to approach customer service problems and move away from the old and boring customer service techniques. As in the case, gamification can improve employee moral and company culture when it comes to customer service, making it a better experience for both the customer and the employee.
One area I see gamification in is social networking can communication apps and websites. Social media already uses gamification, from adding reactions on other peoples posts which act as ‘points’ for the user, to unlocking achievements when certain features are used. For example, the popular social media app, Snapchat, gives users virtual achievements when they send enough ‘snaps’ or turn on certain features, or use the app daily. While social media and customer service already uses gamification, I predict that many more industries will use gamification in the future.
1. Gamification is based around the idea that if the service provider is enjoying providing that service more, and are happier, more engaged and invested in customers will provide a better service and as a result the happiness is contagious and passed onto the customer. Gamification is a way of engaging these service providers to provide high quality service. For example, some organizations have developed ways to reward their employees “points” for certain metrics so they can level up or get trophies. One of the very large implication which it has, is it kind goes against the grain of some the older techniques and methods. So, I think this will force some of those who are resistant to change the way they think or they will not be able to compete.
2. Well, I think that implementing as a reward system has many, many applications, for example you could implement in a sales or retail store to incentivize employees to level up with their sales levels and cleaning time. I also think that in service industries rewarding employees more for some less pleasant jobs may attempt to address any negatives in which the employee receives from it. However, I do think that organizations need to be wary that it doesn’t turn into any undue and unfriendly internal competition that damages an organization. Another potential problem is that the employees may chase certain rewards to incentives over others, and will act accordingly in their work, which may not align well with the organization. Moreover, care needs to be taken in designing these systems.
1) Gamification is new way to look at customer service. By taking the old boring and dissatisfying approach to customer service, and replacing it with a fun way to leave customers more satisfied, and happy. Providing customers with a faster, more effective enjoyable way. Incentivizing employees to provide will increase customer satisfaction and retention. I know for me, poor customer service has lead me to switch companies for products and even switch banks to one known more for customer service, by making this experience even remotely more enjoyable would go miles for customer service. I also believe the people who give customer service and work in call centres would enjoy this way more than the tradition method, because customers are in better moods and less on edge it will be a more enjoyable way of dealing with this problem. That being said, I believe no matter how good or bad a companies customer service is some people will always be on edge and unhappy with the system used.
2) I believe this can improve all aspects of customer service for the younger individuals, or people such as myself who dread calling any type of customer service. I hate being put on hold, or constantly being run through different departments only to be told by each person that the next individual I talk to can help. By being more interactive I believe this system would really help improve the experience and personally I would love to see more companies using this system
1. Gamification is the application of typical elements of game playing (e.g., point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service. According to the article, FreshDesk uses gamification to incent employees to provide fast, effective and fun customer service for helpdesk ticketing, automation and customer forums. Gamification is important because it can make the customer service agents happy to provide better quality of the customer service and it can also make the customers happy at the same time. Gamification can raise the engagement and satisfaction from the agent and the customer. Agents will be more enjoyable compare to the traditional working styles, and that will increase their motivation while dealing with customer problems.
2. I believe gamification will become more popular in the industry especially at the technology companies since they are tech people. They tend to be more into new technologies and to be more flexible than other industrial people. The reason that it might become a new trend in the technological industry is because it is a good way to encourage their employees to enjoy their work while solving all customer problems and it will not cost a lot of money. Also, when the employees are having positive thoughts while serving customers, the positive messages will pass to the customers and makes the situation easier to deal with and become a win-win situation for both the company and the customer.
Gamification is the new wave of customer service. Mainly focusing on the new generation who have a very integrated life with technology, gamification focuses on making customer service better. Customer service would work on a point system, where it is kind of a game talking to service reps, and the customer is able to grade the different service reps on a job well done, or controversially a terrible job uncompleted. Service reps are able to level up, and be on top of their own field so to speak. However, the older generation see’s this as childish, and would much rather have a one on one conversation with a service rep trying to address the main problem at hand. This gives a way for service reps to have a report card, and track how they are doing. It also may cause competition at the workplace leading to more productivity, as lets face it; everyone loves beating their coworker in a competition. If the service reps end up being better with the customers, customer service ratings will increase, and the company will have a better value in that industry. I would love it when service reps are a little more helpful, and go out of their way to help me, as I have had people on the phone before and instead of helping they made me more angry than when I started. This could be put into all aspects of work, because if the employee is happy to work and friendly with the customer, this leads to repeat customers, and repeat customers lead to a prospering business.
What is gamification and why is it important?
Gamification is the concept ofa game design techniques to engage and motivate people to achieve their goals and solve problems. It help organizations adjust itself and be ready for upcoming generations and help to solve problems by not being a distraction. This very feature allows customers to have a quick, efficient and enjoyable customer service for help desk ticketing, and automation. It helps employees happier with the service they provide in return will produce happier customers.
2. What potential applications do you see for gamification and in what industries will this add the greatest value?
I think the potentials are for those like myself who inpatient and do not like to be put on hold.
I believe this form will help improve the atmosphere that the customer will encounter and add less stress to the workers. This interactive way of service will add benefits to both the companies and the customers.
Gamification is a new method of customer service that has proven to work better than traditional ways. As far as telephone banking or phoning insurance companies the wait can be tedious and a nuisance to finally get through. This new method of gamification has created a goal for employees to reach by collecting points from the customers they help which will make the employees job a better one with more rewards. I believe it is important because it should potentially speed up the process and increase customers going through a system in order to get the information they require. I see the potential for gamification to be adapted to the University of Lethbridge student and alumni services. As for the industries that gamification would add the greatest value I feel that it has the potential to be adapted to any industry and will produce better results for that company and increase production.
Gameification is a new method of customer service. The intent of this new customer service method is to improve on the traditional ways of customer service by creating a game for customer service representatives to play and to collect points for the customers they help. The designers of this new method claim that it will be better for employees as well customers. Conventional customer service, the old way of customer service, was very one sided in its approach which was very limiting to customers. I can remember the number of times trying to call the phone line on the back of the credit card. They would give you multiple options, but the one thing you need is never on the list where I would eventually be transferred to a representative. The option you think will be closest to your problem is never the right one and when talking to the first representative you are usually transferred to another department since you chose the wrong option which often resulted in waiting a couple minutes, and then you finally get in contact with the right person. The worst about this is that sometimes they would just refer you to the online page where my solution could be found. I am in support Gameification because it is changing customer service because it ensures that the service providers are having fun, which in turn allows the customer to change their mood about the problem they may be facing. And secondly, they allow the employees to have a standard and compete against one another, winning prizes for the most or fastest resolved issues. This would provide incentives for the employees which would lead to the representatives to being more engaged, therefore this increases their quality and quantity of output. I believe this form of technology will help improve solution times for customers and will also create a lighter atmosphere for workers to work in. This interactive way of customer service will both benefit the companies works and the companies customers.
Gamification provided a new approach to problem solving within companies rather than the archaic industrious approach. In some large IT departments, problems are filled out in forms in the way of “tickets”, the tickets are then scored on a scale. The scale is set by difficulty; a problem with routine and quick fix such as password reset are set at a low point score. On the other hand, a problem with a non-routine solution, or tasks that will definitely be time consuming will be rated with a higher, fittingly set score. These points by itself don’t mean much unless it has a token value, in order to create value to these tokens, the company can reward employees with goals such as using points towards an extra vacation day, or other tangible prizes. It is important that the game creates a positive environment that improves employee’s level or service; synergizing themselves for success rather than setting each other up for failure. Gamifying the work place creates a structure that promotes success, it creates incentive for the employees to solve their objectives efficiently, and as fast as possible.
In my opinion, gamifying the workplace is a solution for success. A company that has successfully implemented a “game” structure to problem solving has more incentive to meet their objectives than a company that has not gamified their process. On the end-user side of this, may that be the customer or whoever, this translates to faster, and more likely better service; therefore, an improvement on both ends.
Gamification is the process by which a business uses games and achievements to help their customers receive a higher level of customer service. It is important because it is revolutionizing the customer service industry so that customer service agents are being engaged and productive when it comes to helping out customers. The previous method of monotonous and non interactive customer service through automated messages or call desks left customers wanting more or leaving the call dissatisfied. Many customers, myself included left feeling like the business does not even care about my feeling or thoughts for their product or were left feeling like my satisfaction wasn’t their problem. Gamification is important because it is motivating employees to help customers needs and meet them and resolve them in record time and actually want to be helping customers. By actively enagaging and promoting incentives for employees gamification is creating a sincere attitude for employees in the customer service department. It is allowing customer to feel satisfied and valued which will result in a higher return in business. Customer who feel value will in turn increase the value of the company by continually give its business to the company.
Gamification will not only add value to the customer service department but it could potenitally add value to all departments of a business. For example, the research an development department could be valued and recieve points based on the new technology that the department develops and uses. This could drive research and development employees to collaborate and work together to achieve new results.
Gamification is the use of game-like thinking in situation that are not games to engage users into problem solving and overall improving customer service. It is important to give customer’s a great customer service experience, so that they will continue to use you’re company. So companies are using gamification to improve their customer service help-desk phone calls. They are trying to get their employees to have phone with their customers by providing fun ways to fix their problems. It is important for companies to incorporate new customer service ideas so their customers can be happier. Some industries where gamification could really excel in are cable and Internet companies. When a customer is having problems with their Internet they could phone a help line and while helping them fix their internet connection the telephone agent could make it like a game. This would give a unique approach to making a bad situation into a fun one and perhaps the customer would learn form the experience and remember incase they run through the same problem again. Another good industry to try this would be the computer industry, because a lot of people have computer problems and issues customers get frustrated so easily. Computers are super frustrating sometimes and phoning a computer help line is by far one of the most annoying thing. It is really hard to fix computer problems over the phone when the customer is less than interested. So by making the situation fun the customer can be interested in learning and problem solving.
What is gamification?
Gamification is exactly what is sounds like, it is turning something into a game; gamifying it. In other words, it is changing your job but a boring unappealing job into a high energy competitive job. Gamification uses points and scores to entice employees to do a better job and the opportunity to ‘win the game’ by getting the best sore. Gamification inspires completion between employees which helps employees go above and beyond to beat out their competition. I think gratification is a great tool to try out when it comes to customer service. The majority of the time when a customer is calling a customer service hot line it is because they are unhappy or something to doing with their account/plan has gone wrong. If they pick up the phone and instead of fighting through the “phone trees” to get to an unpleasant and hard to understand customer service representative, they spoke to someone who was happy and very interested in helping them out, customer satisfaction would increase. I have personally gone through an unpleasant customer service representative when I need to make a return for a product that I had purchased. He was very rude and made assumptions about me being mad at the product I had purchased. I left the store in a really bad mood and still to this day have not gone back to that store and do not plan on it if that worker is working that day. If gamification has the opportunity to reduce these kinds of unpleasant customer to employee relations and excite and entice employees about their jobs, then why not use it?!
Gamification incorporates game like techniques to reward employees. Gamification is a new way for customer service employees to find more satisfaction in their job, and therefore be better at their job. Gamification rewards employees to provide the best customer service possible. It does this by moving employees up “levels” when they give exceptional customer service in order to receive rewards. Gamification makes the employee more productive since the more productive the employee, the more rewards they get. Gamification is very similar to “commission based job” in the sense that rewards are given for performance. They are very similar except for the fact that commissions are traditionally given to a sales employee for making sales and gamification can be applied to jobs in which selling is not a part of the job description, like customer service. It also benefits customers since customer service agents are more motivated to be better at their job, which is to give service to customers. I think gamification can be applied in many ways and suitable for many jobs. Specifically I think gamification would be most useful in jobs where there is little human interaction. I believe this because say in technician job employees can feel undervalued because of the lack of human interaction/ recognition given, gamification can help employees feel more valued than they normally would in these positions. Although I do think gamification can be applied to many different job as long as they are implemented the right way and are benefitting the employees, management, and customers.
Gamification is a relatively new concept of applying game mechanics and game design techniques to engage and motivate people (companies’ employees and customers) to achieve their goals by various non-game companies and applications. In other words, gamification is a business world’s attempt to evolve, adapt to the new way of thinking of people living in the digital world. By using gamification, companies increase their competitive advantage, become more efficient and attractive to the consumers. Our generation, generation Y has grew up with almost 24/7 access to the internet, new reality and new way of learning, working and entertainment possibilities. Our motivation is not based simply on sense of obligation and necessity to comply with the rules, in order to be successful at school or at work, our motivation is based on fascination and reward we learn while playing games, computer games in particular. Majority of us do not require explanation of what such words as powerleveling, quests, and trophies mean. We learn them all by playing computer games for hours at a time. Are we able to be as intensely involved in our studies or everyday routine work activities? Probably, not. So, gamification brings these two worlds together by fusing fun and productivity. Gamification found its way into the education system by providing interactive learning platforms, into the business world by engaging employees with the help of intangible motivation through gaming-work experiences, and most importantly, by engaging customers and providing them with new exciting customer experience and building long lasting mutually beneficial relationships.
Gamification is a new and improved way of dealing with customer service. Typically customer service leaves you feeling annoyed and or even frustrated. What Gamification has done is allow customers to interact in competition with one another, while dealing with their customer service, and in doing so, it awards progress throughout your experience with “trophies”. This very feature enables customers to provide quick, enjoyable and efficient customer service for help desk ticketing, automation and also customer forums. Although Gamification may be an alternative way of looking at customer service, and therefore may not be as serious as in the past, it is the step in the right direction. Any model that incorporates a better experience for both the employee and customer is a win-win situation. Gamificaiton seems to be a breath of fresh air in the dreadful confinement of customer service. I hope that other applications such as this continue to incorporate their way into social businesses.
Gamification is a new way for employees who work in customer service to deal with customers. Gamification is viewed as a game; the faster and more efficient the employees are while doing their job the more rewards they receive. Essentially, the employee must provide the best customer service in order to move up the levels to get their rewards. Gamification is important because it not only makes sure that the employees are giving the customers the best service they possibly can, but it also makes giving the best customer service fun and rewarding for the employees, in hopes the employees are happier and more satisfied with their jobs. Gamification is also a benefit for the customer on the other end of the line. For the customer they are able to obtain the information that they were looking for fast and efficiently. Gamification could add great value to many different industries, but specifically industries that are using call centers. Gamification would reduce the time spent with customers over the phone, allowing employees to reduce the waiting time for other customers who may be on hold. Overall, Gamification is seen like a game to employees making the more competitive in the work place, and motivating them to give the best customer service.
Gamification is incorporating a game like situation and techniques to motivate individuals to reach their goals. It creates interest in a job that may be seen as boring. This allows employees to create a up beat environment, making their workplace more energetic and relaxing then a place without gamification. Gamification allows customers to have an enjoyable experience and helps them feel engaged or that they are being valued. The times of kept on hold for a long stretch of time are gone with the presence of gamification. It also eliminates frustration on the customers part because they don’t have to wait for a long period of time. In todays business world, everyone is looking for the competitive advantage on other businesses to keep customers coming back and bringing new customers through the doors. With the addition of creativity to the customer service side of business, it is considered an advancement from the old boring traditional ways. This creates positives for the employee and the customer. The employee enjoys being at work and the customer has a positive experience when dealing with a company. With a positive change in the employee, it will then increase productivity for the company and the customer will have positive thoughts of the company. Personally, gamification can be placed in any industry, as long as it is properly applied in the different industries. The strongest fit would be in the technology industry because employees and customers have frequent interaction.
Gamification is a new way of turning a dull job into a game for costumer service reps by rewarding employees based on client satisfaction. I personally think turning costumer service in to a game for agents is a great idea. I have been in costumer service before and it is a tedious and boring job with very little gratification. If I had Gamification when I was doing costumer service, I wouldn’t say it would make me more motivated to do my job but at the least I would want to work towards getting the rewards and working through the levels. Most big business use costumer service and by using Gamification it would increase efficiency because there is nothing worse then waiting to be served. Decreasing waiting times is a huge part of costumer satisfaction so I can see gamification being incorporated into many of the business out there which would be good for both clients and agents. Gamification also allows for more efficient performance reviews thus taking away another tedious job from employers. I have had a manager position before and doing reviews on employees is based on what I see and not what the costumer thinks, so being able to have the customer do the evaluating for me would be rather convenient giving more time to do the other parts of my job.
As a competitive person I would want to strive to be better than other employees and get the rewards to show my work. This places a gratification to the job that most costumer service reps don’t get.
Gameification is a new method of customer service. Its intention is to improve traditional customer service over the phone as well as in person. Designers say that it will be better for employees as well customers. Conventional customer service, was very one sided with extremely limited. I can remember countless times trying to call the bank. They give you six to eight options, but the one thing you need is never one of those eight. You decide on the option you think will be closest, its never right. Then you get transferred between departments for a couple minutes, and then you finally get in contact with the right person. They explain to you that your issue is in fact something you have to do online rather than on the phone. I am in full support of Gameification! It is changing customer service because: firstly it ensures that the service providers are having fun, which in turn allows the customer to change their mood. Secondly, they allow the employees to have a standard and compete against one another, winning prizes for the most or fastest resolved issues. Since the proper incentives are in place the employees are more engaged, which increases their quality and quantity of output. I believe this form of service will be most strongly used in technology industries, they are ever changing are more and more difficult for consumers to keep up with. I believe one group that has already had some success in this area is Health Link. You call and speak with a nurse who diagnoses you over the phone and gives you their opinion. Other than the wait time, these calls are extremely beneficial. I believe this success is based on the facts that the nurses are still helping others.
What is gamification and why is it important?
Gamification is a new process to do deal with customer service. What gamification does is it is a system that rewards customer service agents with levels and rewards while they conduct customer service. It supposes to be a game. The game’s main goal is to help to customer obviously. The levels of the game are based on employees not making mistakes while performing customer service, being fast and efficient. If they perform those tasks they go up a level and are rewarded for it. Gamification is a new generation application as well.
Why Gamification is important is because it helps customers. The review on gamification from younger generation customers is it works great. As mentioned earlier because gamification tries to reward fast and efficient employees it makes the process better for customers who otherwise would be waiting longer. The other important part of it is that the employees who conduct gamification enjoy doing it.
What potential applications do you see for gamification and in what industries will this add the greatest value?
I see that gamification could be used in lots of industries. Mainly because most big industries have customer service lines that are long wait times. Personally the customer service agents aren’t always the most efficient either when you do get through to them. So I think if gamification through its levels and rewards could speed up things and make the agents more efficient when talking to them is a very good thing.
Gamification is the use of game thinking and in non-game contexts to engage users in solving problems and increase users’ self-contributions. The main purposes of gamification are going to improve user engagement. In the article, FreshDesk uses gamification to provide fast, effective and fun customer service. From the example, we can see gamification is very important method to help company provide good customer service. Gamification has positive effects for service field. Now gamification has been widely applied in marketing. Over 70% of Forbes global 2000 companies surveyed in 2013 said they planned to use gamification for the purposes of marketing and customer retention.
In many areas, gamification will be used and provide good service. Gamification can be a good tool to try new products. Gamification is a creative and useful way to introduce a new product to customers. The company give a free trial of their product for customers. They can let users test out the product in the form of a game designed to teach them how to use it. Then customers will decide launch or not. Gamification is provide options for customers. In work place, it can simulate the employers to get good performance. We can see who get the highest score. It likes a competition for employers. This will increase the people’s motivation for good performance. In my onion, gamification is great way to improve the satisfaction and engagement.
Gamification is essentially a way of turning a job into a game by using a system of allocating points in order to create competition between employees and make their jobs funner. This is an important concept and could prove to be very effective because who doesn’t like some competition, especially with bragging rights on the line. Gamification will make employees work harder and smarter and try to climb their way to the top of the list and earn bragging rights. However, a possible downfall could be that since employees are measured on speed, that they might rush their way through more complex problems and leave the customer as confused as before if speed is their main concern. That being said this could easily be eliminated by assigning higher point values for customer satisfaction and successfully solving problems.
Gamification is incorporating skill levels points and they then compete against each other to gain trophies. This creates friendly competition within the company pushing people to work harder and achieve the next level, and reward that go with them. I think that Gamification is a great way to increase customer and employee satisfaction. Customer satisfaction increases as they are receiving better service, and employee satisfaction increases as they have a measurable way to view how they are doing and how they could improve.
The gamification structure can be potentially added in all applications. Customer service, hospitality and sales could see gamification growth, and could add the greatest value in theses industries as they are customer driven and with increase in customer satisfaction could increase their spending. These industries also tend to have younger employees who tend to be more accepting to the gamification structure.
Gamification is an interesting idea that incorporates employees tracking achievements in a fun way, which uses “games”. Happiness and being engaged in the work is another important component in the functionality in this concept. It involves working with companies and connecting through social media, and uses a couple different strategies to really begin a relationship between customer and company. It is absolutely true to say that there is a serious issue typically with ‘customer service’, which usually ends up in frustrated debate between both parties. The employees of FreshDesk also have the added benefit of some friendly office competition, ultimately contributing to an enhanced culture in the workplace. Having an office environment that fosters fun and joy can really aid in providing an overall healthy work environment, which will increase productivity and in turn, customer satisfaction. The application of this business model could have great benefits for some companies that currently employ practices that leave the customer frustrated. Specifically, I have had terrible customer service experiences with SHAW. Over the phone, they are less than helpful, and are very far from transparent. You may be charged more than the plan you agreed to, or simply mislead about the services that they offer. If they implemented ‘gamification’ it could really improve the customer experience. The actual game portion of the strategy would likely have more appeal to the younger generation. There is no denying that everyone regardless of generation, could benefit from more pleasant people on the other end of the phone.
Gamification is the idea that we incorporate a gameplay structure to something that isn’t related to gaming. Gamification of business is what the article refers to. Gamification of customer service could make this very frustrating process a little more engaging than waiting idly by a phone or computer waiting for a response. The customer service representatives have to do their best to deal with a really tough situation. Gamification can make it easier for representatives to work through customers as objectively as possible, as an obstacle to overcome as opposed to it be a monotonous process. Gamification would help to make customer service representatives more level headed and more content with their work.
This can help to engage customers as the representatives are more positive and they will help to be part of the solution more so than part of the problem. Gamification if expanded could be extended to adding engagement to the waiting periods, and maybe bring down some of the tension of customer and service relations.
This could be expanded to all aspects of work. It could be the way business is conducted, to motivate people to work harder, to level up and gain bonuses for a specific level of performance. This is a revolutionary way of thinking with unlimited potential, it could be as simple as adding a small mini game while waiting for a webpage to load. Or adding a tele communicative game for long wait periods on the phone.
Gamification is an attempt to making customer service a more fun and less tedious experience. Customer service agents are essentially competing against each other in a game format. There is an element of point scoring to determine your rank and employees can earn trophies and awards for their efforts. This is a great marketing technique to make customers more satisfied with the customer service process, considering we have all been there, having to sit on hold for hours to not even get the answer we were looking for. Gamification is important because it keeps employees happy and motivated, and as it said in the article, happiness is contagious. If the customer is happy with the service they are offered, it is a job well done. Gamification can be an extremely successful technique for employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction, and the overall success of your business.
Gamification can be implemented in a vast category of organizations and could be successful in each. I think in industries such as smart phone help, or telecommunications support such as Telus or Rogers. These industries are known for having extremely poor customer service call centres, so I believe they are the ones who can benefit the most from implementing a marketing technique such as gamification. Customers can become more loyal to certain companies who implement this because they know that if they need help with a certain product, the customer service team is willing to help and make your problem feel important. Gamification has many benefits to companies, and I believe more businesses should adapt this strategy to develop a better relationship with their employees and customers.
I believe that Gamification is a great idea, as it brings a friendly competition to the company. When their is some sort of competition with incentives/rewards the employees will be motivated to work, as well as feeling higher job satisfaction. The goal is the achieve the highest amount of points for the quickest issue solutions. Gamification is used in the customer service area or “front lines” of the company, which I believe really makes the difference. When customer service representatives are happy and have job satisfaction it will transfer directly over to the customer in receiving good service from the representative. Gamification is a great idea to bring into your workplace for customer service
Gamification makes work fun and in turn makes for engaged employees and happy customers. I would much rather deal with an employee who was efficient in their job but also enjoyed it. I do sympathize for the older customer service workers. It is hard to adapt to a new technology and a new way of thinking when you are used to the way things used to be. Having said that, they need to get on board with this new way of thinking. It will benefit them in the long run and make for a fun experience for their customers.
I would like to see gamification in all aspects of customer service and not just telephone support. If the associate was more engaged in helping customers it would make for a more pleasant shopping experience. Right now, it is pretty apparent that an associate is only available to collect their paycheck. If they were more engaged and saw helping customers as a fun experience where they can “level up” it would definitely change how we perceive these associates. I am optimistic that other industries will attempt to follow suit and make helping customers a more engaging experience.
In the article,it is very clear that gamification is an online marketing strategy or techniques that most companies uses nowadays to encourages customers engagement with a product or service.I finds that it is a great way of finding customer satisfactions.For example,in the article it works well with some companies such as credit card and airlines.I was amazed to learned about 5 key benefits that gamification brings to business,such as staying connected with your customers,offers a way to give back to the community,collect powerful customer data…these are very important because daily interactions between customer and business create customer satisfaction which is a primary goal of any business that needs to win more customers. According to Mathrubootham,gamification idea works well in today society because it gives people a measurable way to earn the respect of their peers. For example,most younger generation are happy than older generation because the younger generation are very much comfortable with current technology than older generation.In my thoughts,gamification is an excellent customer service because it creates brand awareness and drive users engagement.It also increases satisfaction for both customer and service provider.
Gamification is mostly used by social businesses.And it helps them succeed.
Gamification is the step towards a more engaging and less tedious customer service experience. Just as the name suggests it allows customer service agents to do their tasks in the manner of a “game.” They can earn achievements and trophies through friendly competition with each other. This “game” they are playing keeps the agents focused on doing a good job and maintaining a positive, happy, and interactive attitude. These qualities are key in a good customer service company because if the agent is happy with what they are doing then so will the customer; their happiness is contagious. All of this is important because the old, and more recognized, form of customer service is excruciating to deal with usually and often ends up with frustration from both the agent and the customer. Gamification is definitely a better way of doing customer service.
Gamification would allow for customers to be more welcoming of customer service, instead of searching for other solutions which could lead to more confusion or possibly injury in the case of certain products. A good customer service department could also boost sales because people will feel more secure knowing that if they do not fully understand the product or service they are receiving, they can always turn to customer service. A lot more jobs could open up; if people hear about gamification they will be drawn towards companies that offer this type of service and will remain loyal if the system is executed well. Gamification’s possibilities do not end there. If more companies implement this system of service, positive opportunities will continue to present themselves.
I have had my fair share of interactions with customer service representatives and it has been just as tedious, and sometimes confusing, as I have heard from others. Almost every company’s customer service is the same, as discussed in this article, with the “call this number”, the multiple interactions with automated and pre-recorded voices, and elevator style music that many have become accustomed to when put on hold. All of these reasons are why I really do believe that this new shift away from this style of “phone trees” is a refreshing technique that companies can start to use. Though I have had to deal with the phone call style of customer service, I have also interacted more technologically with customer service by sending emails and corresponding via webmail with different companies if I experienced any dissatisfaction with a product or service. I find that each have their pros and cons, but I am interested in this “gamification” of customer service. I think setting up a system for the employees of customer service that rewards points to who resolves the most issues the fastest is an innovative incentive, ensuring customers’ issues are resolved in a timely fashion. I think engaging your customers truly is an important step in ensuring positive feedback after interaction with customer service representatives, and as this article says, it seems to show with the support of both younger and older generations. Everyone wants to feel that they and their problems or concerns are important, and I feel this “gamification” of customer service helps drive this point home. Most every industry could implement this technique, and should, simply because making the customer feel appreciated and not overlooked helps ensure customer loyalty, and perhaps new customers who know that the company cares about its customers.
Gamification is a way to interact customers with the customer service representative that they have called for support. It is a way for employees to provide fast, effective, and fun service to the customers as opposed to the customer needing to listen to the employee in a scripted conversation. Making happier employees will make happy customers. When a customer calls customer service support, they deserve to be talking to an employee who is happy at their job which will in turn will make them more willing to help and easier to interact with. Gamification helps with this. It helps to make the employees happier in their jobs and allows them to provide better service to the customers that need support. Gamification helps increase engagement between the customer service representative and the customer. The older employees have a point about customer service not being taken serious by using gamification; it has the potential to be taken the wrong way by any customer who calls in. A company that wants to change their tactics has to accept the fact that they will never be able to please everyone, but that the change will eventually be accepted by the employees once they start to see how much happier the customers are. Dealing with happy customers makes work more enjoyable, as well as vice versa, as a customer to deal with happy employees makes the entire experience more enjoyable. As like anything else, customer service is striving for a way to change and evolve, and gamification is the way to do it.
Customer service can be a hard industry to be in, it can either bring out the anger in customers which will drive motivation down for employees or you can lose long time clients by dissatisfaction from the service. implementing a new program to drive employees motivation up could be very beneficial not only to the customers, but to the organizations performance as well. Gamification is a great new way to provide customer service, as the young new employees graduate from post secondary school, more and more young employees will be on board with the new process. providing incentives towards performance on customer service jobs is a huge way to motivate employees and also see how their personal work ethic is. Customer service has been around for years, and for some that are in the customer service industry they know that it may not be the best place to work. implementing a “game” while providing customer service can be a huge beneficial change for organizations. it will eliminate dissatisfied customers due to the work ethic and motivation that employees will provide, and it will also eliminate board and unsatisfied employees by increasing the responsibility of their job. I feel that adding any sort of intensives to jobs will increase the performance on how to job is done. Gamification also provides a competition with other employees, to see who can get the highest score. this will also increase motivation because other employees will try and out do each other. Gamification is a great process for customer service and i think every organization should try to implement some form of the process.
From the article, we can see that gamification is a new way for customer service. It puts game ideas into the real customer service and trying to make customers happy and satisfied. Its main goal is to incent employees to provide fast, effective and fun customer service for help desk ticketing, automation and customer forums. Customer service is an important part for many companies and organizations. Everybody is a customer is daily life and most of us have been hold on line by customer services for nearly hours just to solve a simple problem. Lots of people will getting disappointed when come across this kind of things. It seems customer service cannot provide good experience or even fun to customers.
In my opinion, gamification is a very good idea for customer service especially for young people as most of them have no patient to stay on phone and waiting for someone talk to them. They prefer a way that with more fun just like gamefication. It will be more effective for them to solve their problems. But for old people, they still prefer traditional way and prefer talking to someone to solve their problems. As the article says it is still a hard part to get everyone on board and have a methodology to do that. It is still a challenge to face if a company trying to use gamification.