Incentive Ideas keeping Call Center Reps. Motivated

[Cirep10]

We are a customer service company that has just implemented a call center. There are currently four people in the call center; we are expecting to expand to about sixteen to twenty call center reps.

One of the main questions that I throw around in my mind is. The larger become how do I keep them motivated?

I am interested in any ideas of incentive or motivate programs.

[ranjanik]

Hi! I have just cut-pasted an answer I had sent Andy on mail. ...Hope it helps.
Bonuses are a double edged sword & need to be used carefully. they can become stale very fast & de-motivate instead of motivate in case the same few keep winning.
Once you have budgeted for the bonus divide it into two parts. For sales (even if it is upselling on a customer service call)
projects always have a standard incentive scheme. which follows a climb & plateau's at about 175% of target.
The other half use for innovative floor incentives. e.g: have quality kings & queens for a week declared as Quality week. have Hall of fame for attendance combined with maximum log in hours or some other such combination. parallely have a hall of shame for those who default beyond acceptable limits & so on.
Keep changing the floor programs. You can use the current most popular Tube programs as themes for floor games. Just ensure they are always linked to some kind of productivity targets. Try to push for the ones that are an issue in your center....remember always brain storm with a representative group of agents to make them feel a part of it ,but manage perceptions ,this will ensure their buy in...good luck & keep me in the loop of how it works. I am
very interested.
Cheers
Ranjani

[mpsheehan]

You can find many books and articles about motivation ideas.

I think you will struggle designing something around money until you have some historical data-so that the rewards are fair and meaningful for everyone.

One of the funnest we did was-we used monopoly money (the bills represented different management and rewards) to give when we caught someone doing something very well. The reps could then use the money for company logo items, shirts, bags, etc.-This also helped my dress code problems in some cases.
Mike

[dlight]

Our call center takes inbound service and sales calls, and one of the incentive programs we have had some success with is a points based system which awards paid time off.

Basically our reps are rewarded points for top performance, increaces in efficiencies, commendations from customers, and just about anything we can think of to recognize positive job performance. We award point cards each week, which are visible to the entire staff on team bords located within the call center.

Our reps accumulate these points and redeem them for paid time off. The cost is minimal and the program is highly visible.

[Cirep10]

I would like to thank everyone for responding.

Dlight, I really enjoyed your incentive point program, I would like to present this idea to my boss. If possible would you be willing to give more details?

[dlight]

Email me at dlight@ezt.net and I will reply with some of our internal documentation on the incentive programs we use in our call center. I would also be happy to answer any questions you have after you review the information.