Call Center Incentive Ideas- How to Keep your Staff Happy

Happy, motivated call center employees create happy customers. Call center workers face certain obstacles that make it difficult to maintain a high level of enthusiasm and productivity in the workplace. So here are some tips on how to keep your staff happy using incentive ideas.

Working in busy centers, adapting to new IT AND CRM systems, and experiencing a high staff turnaround, are factors that could chip away at a once eager employee’s motivation.

Things To Do As An Employer

As an effective employers, it’s important to adopt motivational techniques and call center incentives by implementing clever ways of communicating with your team. In turn, this will generate an ambitious workforce whilst boosting morale in this tough environment.

Call center workers are agile individuals that are able to respond to a multitude of bespoke queries from all walks of life. Whether members of your teamwork in sales, customer support or marketing, their services are tailored to a very diverse audience.

From difficult customers, rude recipients or just simply being hung up on, difficult consumers have the ability to diminish your employee’s mood and morale in just a few minutes.

Adapting Incentive Ideas

This is why it is important to adopt call center incentives that will inject a boost of energy and encouragement into your team. The goal is to make sure that your team exemplify the verbal customer service standard your business is trying to achieve.

Sometimes, that is easier said than done! Front-line customer service is difficult to work and often, it can be mentally and emotionally draining for staff who have to deal with stress, KPI’s, targets and of course, members of the public.

You could find that customer service standards could dip due to a lack of agent incentives, which is something that should be avoided at all costs.

In order to achieve employee engagement, it’s important to look at incentives that will create a happy workforce but also maintain agent retention. Call centers have a reputation for having a high staff turnaround which can have a detrimental effect on business goals.

Increasing motivation is a crucial factor when making sure you have done all you can to keep your all-important team thriving. Some of these incentives include:

Rewards and Incentives

Let’s face it, everyone likes to be rewarded for their hard work, right? However, in some industries that are easier to do. Call centers are fast-paced, target driven establishments that require all hands on deck to get the job done.

It can sometimes feel that there is no time for rewards or staff building exercises when there is a job to do! This couldn’t be further from the truth. Setting out time during the week (or day), to recognise your team’s hard work could be the make or break when it comes to a fully present team! High impact, low-value incentives go a long way.

Recognising and rewarding excellence is a key driver to help boost performance and employee retention. It could be as simple as praising staff for their efforts or calling a team meeting to let the team know how well they have worked or during a one-to-one.

Feel Your Staff Valued

Making your staff feel valued and appreciated is one of the main reasons why people stay in a job. Of course, we’re not talking about handing over keys to a new car or paying off their mortgage, but instead, taking the time out of your day to appreciate your team will not only make them work harder, but it will also help to build their confidence in the workplace.

Try not to make your rewards and incentives unattainable. The last thing you want is to wear down your workers who think they must work towards unachievable standards to get recognised.

It’s about finding the right balance to promote engagement but to also let you team know they are valued. Rewards and incentives tend to have a short-term impact, so it is important to implement a rewards and recognition scheme to keep engagement flowing all year round.

Creating a league table or target driven reward incentive is a great way to incorporate some healthy competition between colleagues.

Create a Fun Working Environment

It is important to remember that your staff wake up every morning, get dressed and come to work. Whether it’s purely for money, fulfilment or career progression, employees who say at their desks have chosen to attend work that day. Why make it a hostile environment?

As humans, we love the interaction, making memories and building connections with co-workers. Fun, laughter and socializing create happier people, which will in turn, create a happier workforce.

Implementing a fun working atmosphere can help your co-workers gen with each other and build a cohesive team. All work and no play leads to a boring, demotivated team, so it’s important to create call center incentives that incorporate fun.

Team building games, staff nights out and time away from the desk will show your team that you care about their mental wellbeing. As a result of this, your team are more likely to find a sense of belonging at work and may even develop long-lasting friendships with coworkers.

It is important to use fun as an incentive tool. A fun working environment will inspire your staff to stay loyal to the business, but it will also boost their working attitude, moral and targets.

Environment

Your staff’s environment is probably one of the key areas that you can incentivise. Making sure your team have adequate airflow, desk space and access to natural light are environmental factors that increase employee comfort. These may seem like basic, rightful aspects of a workplace, but isn’t always the case. Ensuring that these important areas are well established, you can then move on to other ways of creating a positing workspace.

Bonus tip- Keep your refrigerator full

Treating your team to lunch every now and then is great but making sure you have a well-stocked fridge with water, soft drinks and tea and coffee is an added bonus.

Convenient refreshments are a great way to keep your team hydrated but it will also make them feel as though their wellbeing needs are being met.

Extending this offering to include healthy snacks such as fruit or cereal bars is also a great way to make sure your team feel valued and less hungry!

Establishing these low value incentives will make your agents feel supported and respected whilst maintaining a good standard of working.

Allowing trams members to get frequent breaks away from the desk for fresh air is another way to give mental support and showing them that you care about their much-needed time away from the computer.

Supporting your team by creating a comfortable environment is a great call center incentive that is easy to adopt but also extremely beneficial.

Communication

Installing an open and approachable atmosphere is a call center incentive that is sometimes overlooked. Good communication is a key factor when it comes to a successful business,and it promotes trust and willingness between managers and employees.

Creating a safe space for agents to talk or discuss issues is a crucial way to build this trust which can have some encouraging outcomes for working life. One of the biggest causes of grievances in the workplace is driven by a breakdown in communication between team members or employees and managers.

Host One to One Meetings

One of the best ways to promote good call center incentives is to host regular one-to-one meetings with call center employees to discuss any issues they may face. Nipping these issues in the bud means they will not build up over time and cause bigger problems. Being open, honest, and transparent with your team by encouraging an open dialogue will ensure that you are well respected as an employer.

Providing a clear and concise space for conversation is a good way to motivate agents and understand their personal goals and objectives. Being good at communicating with your team is one of the best ways to boost morale and trust within a call center. Lots of time is spent working and dealing with members of the public, sometimes it’s good to be there to listen to a rant, problem or simply just to have a chat.

Bring out the best in your team.

By including these call center incentives in your daily working lives, you set the bar for a harmonious and encouraging workspace. By adopting an incentivised plan of action will allow your call center to thrive and targets to be met because you have taken the time to appreciate the most important people- your employees.

To build a better workplace it is essential that an employee incentive scheme is assembled, and that employee recognition is at the forefront of your business. This will make a tremendous difference to your business goals and objectives.