Gamification Case Study

Gamification in the
Contact Centre

EVALUAGENT Workforce Optimisation Solutions

About NS&I
NS&I is one of the largest savings organisations in the UK, offering a vast
range of financial products and services to over 25 million customers. As
a state-owned organisation, it has very particular requirements regarding
customer service, and a complex network of stakeholders.

Its contact centres are outsourced to international information technology

services provider Atos, with three sites housing over 260 front-line agents
and over 340 back-office staff across Blackpool, Durham and Glasgow. Staff
primarily handle inbound service enquiries via phone and email, but also
manage sales, with a rapid response team making outbound calls to resolve NS&I is one of the largest
registered complaints.
savings organisations
Like any organisation in the financial sector, customer experience is a huge in the UK, with over 25
priority and key differentiator for NS&I - this means making sure frontline million customers
contact centre staff are trained, engaged and striving to perform at every turn.

The challenge
The contact centre is an environment where it’s easy for staff to quickly become disengaged, and putting in measures to
rectify this is often a difficult task for any business. NS&I and Atos found their contact centres struggling with recurring
issues in customer dissatisfaction and staff efficiency, and wanted to transform the culture in their contact centres to ensure
staff performance was consistent - but getting the balance between customer-centricity and business-focused metrics
proved to be a considerable challenge.

As a non-ministerial government department, NS&I culture in the contact centre was often still rooted in civil service
practices, which lead to some disengagement amongst agents. Particularly, Average Handling Time was a metric deemed
to be a cause for concern - it was often too high and the initiatives introduced to address the issue were proving to be
ineffective.

Existing incentives for high performance included a small range of choices of the more traditional contact centre prizes
such as vouchers and various accolades. The reward and recognition system relied on nominations being put forward from
team leaders, peers and customers - the risk associated with this was that it could sometimes lead to the perception of
favouritism, especially if team leaders didn’t have full and accurate visibility into performance across their teams.

This is also partly because the recognition culture was largely dependant on a manual nomination process, where several
particular individuals decided whether or not agents deserved to be rewarded for going above and beyond. This often led to
inconsistency and discrepancies between which behaviours and results warranted reward.

Management realised that it was essential to calibrate and measure the right metrics in order to recognise real progress
amongst staff, rather than just high performance. Atos and NS&I sought to instil a culture of motivation and self-
improvement in their contact centres by being able to link recognition and rewards directly to desirable behaviours.

Atos and NS&I sought to instil a culture

of motivation and self-improvement in
their contact centres by being able to
link recognition and rewards directly to
desirable behaviours.
The solution
The introduction of EvaluAgent into NS&I’s contact centres was an Atos-led initiative, with the software sold to the
business’ stakeholders as a way to combat the issues they were facing.

Following the successful implementation of EvaluAgent, NS&I and Atos decided to trial the use of gamification designed
and optimised specifically for the contact centre. The system enabled Atos to manage and engage contact centre employees
using customer-focused metrics such as quality, first contact resolution, and real-time customer feedback, with a number of
systemised approaches to game-based recognition and reward:

Gamifying & automatically recognising performance

Atos were able to decide the outcomes they wanted to encourage and the rewards for
employees when they achieved them.

Building social reputation

Everyone could access their own tailored personal profile where they could select an avatar,
upload a photograph, view their points-total, achievements and badges as well as follow
friends and colleagues. This level of transparency and personalisation, made it easier to share
learning and understanding of how high performers consistently deliver great service.

Introducing a dose of healthy competition

Agents could team up and challenge their friends to see who could achieve the highest number
of points on a certain outcome. Teaming together high and low performers, proved a very
useful way to informally share best practice and encourage peer support.

Enabling a level playing field

Traditional leader boards can be divisive, but by providing tips on how to gain more points and
assigning agents to ‘clubs’ competing against colleagues doing similar tasks, Atos was able to
maintain healthy competition and kept everyone motivated to improve their performance.

Building a community
Just like a social media news feed, agents were able to see when colleagues and team members
achieved badges, reached new levels or won challenges. The system allowed agents to
‘congratulate’ achievements to make them more visible and follow high performers to gain
inspiration and ideas for improving their own performance.

Gamifying rewards
Employees were able to use their points to bid for a range of prizes, with each auction set up in
a matter of minutes. The gamification control mechanisms ensured the Rewards system never
impacted front-line service levels.

3 EvaluAgent | www.evaluagent.net
The results
Because Contact Centre Gamification is focused on changing behaviour, its impact is almost instant. For agents and team
leaders, one of the biggest improvements is the positive impact gamification has had on the general culture in the contact
centres, which are now better, more engaging places to work. Addressing root causes of issues like disengagement lead to a
cascade of benefits that affect the entire organisation.

Improved Average Handling Time

Before EvaluAgent Contact Centre Gamification, a trial group’s Average Reduction in Average Handling
Handling Time (AHT) was typically 3.5% higher than the rest of the Time (AHT) of

5.5%
operation. Following go-live, the trial group’s AHT is 2.0% lower. Similar
changes were observed with customer satisfaction and adherence metrics.

Sharp uplift in customer satisfaction

The EvaluAgent Contact Centre Gamification approach of encouraging
the right behaviour as well as improving performance, produced rapid
improvements. Overall customer satisfaction improved by 3% in the first Customer satisfaction increased in
three months after implementation. first 3 months by

Agent performance improvement

Agents across the board have shown consistent improvement in their
3.0%
performance as a result of gamification. While very motivating in itself
through its competitive nature, it also means areas for improvement can be
focused on and addressed through integration with the wider workforce
optimisation platform, and EvaluAgent’s collaborative approach to coaching.

240
Gamification
trial went live Gamification Trial Agents:AHT
235
Rest of Operation: AHT

230

225

220

215

210

205

200
04-Mar 01-Apr 29-Apr 27-May 24-Jun 22-Jul

The trial group’s Average Handling Time (AHT)

was typically 3.5% higher than the rest of the
operation. Following go-live, the trial group’s
AHT is 2.0% lower.

4 EvaluAgent | www.evaluagent.net
The team leader view

“Gamification has added a healthy dose of competition, allowing agents to compete across teams or even by site to
improve and maintain performance. They are free to set up personal challenges so they can focus on key areas identified
for improvement, as well as challenging other individuals or groups to do the same. Some might have been hesitant
about that at first but everyone enjoys it now they’re stuck in and it’s really improved the culture in the contact centres.

“My time can now be spent giving the support and direction needed to help agents make the required improvements. The
welcome spin off is that they earn points for doing it so also feel recognised for their efforts. It’s now possible for me to
get a complete view of the level of service being offered by my team and offer immediate help to those most in need of it.”

Lesley Scott
Team Leader, Atos

“It’s made us talk and get to know

each other. I have started to talk
to people who I wouldn’t normally
chat with. Mostly about how they
are earning their points in the
first place but I have also made
some new friends.”
Team member, NS&I

The future
Today, true innovation lies in recognising the needs of the people you employ in your contact centre and those of the
customers they are there to serve. Everyone works harder and more effectively when we are valued – and your people
management strategy should achieve just that.

After a successful implementation, EvaluAgent will work with NS&I and Atos to further optimise their processes in order
to truly make the most out of their software and will continue to work with the gamification programme.

NS&I and Atos now have a consistent contact centre culture centred around motivation and excellence, constantly being
driven by gamification. No matter what pain points and issues arise for the business, Atos and NS&I are now geared to
harness gamification to address and rectify almost any challenge.

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About EvaluAgent
EvaluAgent is workforce optimisation and people management software designed
for call centres and back-office operations.

It is cloud-based and offers a suite of modules that can be plugged together in any
combination, with little or no need for integration with your existing systems.

We’ve specifically designed the Contact-Centre Gamification module to apply

game-mechanics to a contact centre environment and put people back at the heart
of great customer service.

Get your FREE demo of Evaluagent Contact-Centre Gamification at

www.evaluagent.net/demo

EVALUAGENT
DigitalCity, Bridge St West www.evaluagent.net
The Boho Zone
info@evaluagent.net
Middlesbrough
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