What makes a good rewards program? Is it something that displays rewards on a common platform, or does a complete set of engagement activities accompany it?
The answer is both and more.
When we talk about employee engagement for telecallers, we are not looking at cash incentives or rewards alone, but we are also looking at aligning the team towards a common goal.
A good incentive plan works on building a team to achieve organizational goals while fostering a healthy and friendly working environment.
While the typical incentive plan only exists to promote desired working behavior among telecallers, these plans tend to hit a wall when delivering results. The stringent policies lead to a higher turnover rate in the organizations and make the job uninspiring for the employees.
Creating an Encouraging Reward Program
Motivating the telecallers to generate more leads can be a daunting task, But you can overcome the challenges by using innovative ideas to motivate the staff.
Let’s look at some of the proven methods and ideas that work in a call-center environment. While some of these ideas have evolved, others are non-monetary benefits that can add to their overall performance.
- Financial Rewards:
The most common and well-received motivation is the dollar chimes. It is simple; give your employees cash rewards for achieving their targets.
Keep motivating them to bring out their ‘A’ game to achieve even better results in the near future.
- Cash Alternatives:
While cash is a prime motivator, millennials like to outperform their team members for alternative awards too.
Set up rewards schemes where they get points for every lead they bring to the table. Once their points stack up to a certain number, they can redeem them for freebies like an iPod or Smartphone or even an Xbox for those gaming enthusiasts.
- Rewards That Help Families:
You can also provide them with discount vouchers for some stores where they shop regularly, and they can get a discount whenever they go out to bring food home for the family.
For significant achievements, you can also offer a vacation for the entire family. Use a combination of one or several ideas to improve your people’s performance by 10%.
- Special Incentives:
Let’s say a few members of your teamwork over the weekends or put in some extra hours during peak periods; then, you can offer them special incentives to boost their morale.
If they are working on the Easter holiday, then incentivize their results with something extra. Maybe offer them $5 extra for each lead generated or give them a movie ticket the coming weekend.
Such small yet special incentives improve their productivity and assure them their efforts are not taken for granted.
- Working Environment:
The right working environment equals a happy workforce, and that leads to satisfied customers. If you wish your employees to look after your customers well, you should do the same.
To foster a good working environment, you should provide technical and soft skills training to your employees. Provide them with constructive feedback whenever possible, and motivate them to outperform themselves at all times.
- Feedback From Managers:
Your staff needs to get credit for their efforts regularly, and what better way to do that than scheduling a call with the senior management to congratulate them.
Schedule such calls whenever someone hits their weekly targets and motivate them further by unlocking a new training program or a gift voucher for them.
Instead of investing in external training partners, invest in your people, and communicate your message loud and clear. Celebrate their success, and they shall give you even more opportunities for the same.
- Tools and Skills:
Having the right people at work is crucial to keeping the team motivated. But only skills might not be enough. You will have to provide your people with the right infrastructure and tools to perform their jobs effectively.
If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. So, appreciate your team and provide an ergonomic working environment.
In addition to that, give them realistic targets and be ready to hold their hands whenever needed. Without support from their managers, they are likely to feel demotivated and eventually leave the organization.
- Hire People Wisely:
A single spoiled fish will demotivate the entire pond. When you are hiring people to your team, specify the terms and conditions of the job in advance.
As a true leader, you will have to lead them to success, but you cannot do that with dead weight. So, only hire people who are comfortable with the job tasks and have the potential to become future leaders.
Do not hire people for its sake, as it can be detrimental to the team’s success in the future.
- Keep it Fresh:
As tough as it may sound, but a job should never get stale. Once the monotony sets in, there is no going back for the better, especially in the call center setup.
While employee engagement is an excellent idea to keep a refreshed environment, rewards and incentives programs can take their game to the next level.
Add some more flare to the proceedings by providing relevant training programs regularly. It helps your people stay up-to-date with what’s going on in lead generation and allows them to upgrade their skills to industry best.
- Keep Career Progression Opportunities Open:
The world has changed. Today, tenure with the company is not the primary criteria for career progression. Instead, it is based on a performance-oriented scale.
Keep the progression path open for all employees and let them go the extra mile to achieve their desired career goals.
If a young upstart can outsell the entire team every week, it is wise to offer them a promotion ahead of time to keep them motivated. As a result, it will motivate other team members to do the same, and you will be able to get more leads for your organization.
- Reward and Recognition:
Imagine calling people the whole day only to receive a mixed bag of responses, which also includes offensive ones.
It sounds complicated, right? So, why not give your team some happiness and recognize all the hard work they put in for your organization.
A result-based incentive system is present in every organization, but very often, leads are acquired by team efforts.
You should distribute commissions on leads among multiple team members if all of them worked together. It doesn’t spread a feeling of mistrust and also encourages teamwork among your people.
Appreciate your team, and they will return the positive motivation with outstanding results.
Incentives Should Not Be a Distant Hope
Rewards and incentives should not be unachievable for telecallers, and you can achieve all the results you desire with some regular employee engagement.
Keep them flowing every week, and do not make your people test their patience by offering them the rewards at the end of the month or year.
Provide your people with objective reports about their performance regularly and watch outputs go through the roof.
Start Engaging Your Teams Effectively
When you want to chalk out a systematic engagement plan for your team, you need an automated engagement solution to expedite things.
NextBee provides a myriad of AI-powered features in their employee engagement platform that helps you increase employee’s tenure with the company and adds to the organization’s overall productivity.
Are you ready to take things to the next level? Then get in touch with our experts today, and they will help you get on the right track over a free consultation.
