7 Engaging Call Center Contest Ideas To Get Excited About

As a call center manager, you face one of the toughest jobs out there. How do you keep your team motivated despite heavy call volume, disgruntled customers and extreme pressure to deliver good customer service? With a few call center contest ideas, you can give your team members direct reasons to do their best.

While it’s always important for your team members to know what’s required of them, it’s even more important that they have the desire to supply it. One way to accomplish this is to add a little gamification into the mix.

Gamification in the workplace encourages healthy competition by offering incentives and rewards to increase interest and commitment to the goals you choose. You can gamify your call center using these engaging call center contest ideas:

1. Daily Perks

Daily perks are one of the simplest of all the call center contest ideas. Choose one of the KPIs you want to improve in this contest. Then, at the end of the day, give a special prize for the person who performed best on that metric.

The KPI you choose needs to be one you can measure quickly so the winner can claim their reward at the end of their shift or as soon as they come in the next day.

Having a quality assurance software that automatically tracks agents’ performance would make this super easy to do.

The daily perks can include anything from a gourmet coffee drink, lottery tickets, a gift card, funny socks, or an extra break.

2. Penny Wars

One great way to increase cooperation among your agents is to get them working together to donate to a charity.

Choose teams for this game. Every team, which is usually comprised of two to three departments, has a bucket. Teams can place coins in their own or other team’s buckets. Pennies are worth one point, while silver coins are worth negative points, based on the coin’s value. For example, a nickel is worth -5 points. At the end of the war, the team with the most points wins.

Call center team contest ideas are great for increasing cooperation while encouraging healthy competition.

3. Call Center Olympics

If your team is lagging and you want to really boost all your metrics, go for the gold! Try comprehensive call center contest ideas like Call Center Olympics.

Choose several metrics to compete in and set the time period for the games. Each KPI is considered a sport. The person who has the best KPI score for that sport gets a medal or ribbon for the win.

To wrap up your Call Center Olympics, you can have a party to celebrate the winner’s success. Don’t forget to have an awards ceremony to honor the top three winners.

4. Call Center Mania Throw-Down

Another option to reward overall good performance using call center contest ideas is called Call Center Mania Throw-Down with the goal of getting the highest overall performance score.

When you plan this challenge, imagine what it would be like if your agents were wrestlers vying to be champion. Use all the flash and glitter of wrestling events to pump up the excitement before the contest begins.

Do this contest in tournament style, so that the top performers keep advancing as the contest goes on. Then, maintain focus on the goal of increasing overall performance metrics.

At the end of the competition, compute scores and declare the winner of the top prize. The grand prize should have meaningful value above and beyond just winning the contest. Examples might be a home appliance or a gift card for an upscale restaurant.

5. Beach Party Bingo

Looking for call center contest ideas that are outrageously fun? Beach Party Bingo is a contest that starts with the right atmosphere and ends in a big win for your agents, your company, and you as the call center manager.

Set up a beach area where you put a couple of outdoor chairs and a sun umbrella. Add a barrel or tub full of tennis balls, each labeled with a number and the name of a bingo prize. Make up a bingo card for each agent. Make the party days “Hawaiian Dress-Up Day,” for an added fun call center idea.

Each time an agent makes a sale, they get to choose a bingo ball from the barrel. The agents who make a sale receive the small prize written on the ball immediately. They also get to mark off the number written on the ball on their bingo sheet. The bingo winner receives a larger prize or perk.

6. Race Day

Race Day is one of the simplest call center contest ideas. You can use it to boost any metric that requires quick work.

Choose 3 or more teams and set up the requirements. For example, you might give points for the person who picks up calls the fastest. At the end of race day, total each team’s points and award a prize.

7. Mystery Prize

Put a little intrigue into your workplace with Mystery Prize call center contest ideas. Choose an unusual mystery prize that your team members won’t easily guess. Then, hide the prize or a picture of the prize somewhere in your call center.

Each day, the team member who performs best on the specified metric gets a clue. Clues can be about what the mystery prize is or where it’s located. The more clues they get, the closer they get to finding the prize. The first person to identify wins it.

Tap Into Your Agents’ Competitive Spirit For Big Rewards

Work can seem both boring and stressful when every day is the same. You work every day to change that. Contests can make your work seem like play, both for your agents and for yourself.

What’s more, you can use these challenges to build a great team day-by-day.

As a call center manager, you have a great opportunity to improve your team’s performance. At the same time, you can make their work-life more enjoyable. And, that translates to better performance. 

When you engage your agents through exciting call center games, you put everyone in a good mood. Your team becomes interested, involved, and motivated to help your call center succeed. When your call center agents succeed, your customer experience succeeds. 

Looking for an easy way to gamify your call center? Playvox’s quality assurance software lets agents accumulate points based on the actions taken on the platform, which they can later claim for the prizes of their choosing! 

How do you make your call center more engaging for agents? Let us know in the comment box down below!