Make Fridays More Fun in Your Contact Centre

Is your team fizzling out on a Friday or starting the weekend with a bang? It really should be the latter, but how do you keep things fresh and interesting?

To find out, our Editor – Megan Jones – spoke to our readers and consultants to round up their best tips on everything from sharing amazing feedback, to quick-win mood boosters, and even how to stop agents taking their worries home with them over the weekend.

Come Together to Celebrate What’s Going Well

Be More Present on the Floor on a Friday

A good way to boost team morale on a Friday is simply to be more present.

Wander around, sit beside your agents as they are taking calls and tell them what they did well, or ask them if they have any nice plans for the weekend.

It’s about showing up and championing the sense that you’re all in this together – not just disappearing into a meeting room or, worse still, going home early.

Jump Onto the Phones and Take Calls Yourself

You can take this idea one step further by jumping onto the phones yourself!

Set Up a “Feel-Good Friday” Teams Channel

Make a habit of celebrating wins across the contact centre every Friday by setting up a dedicated Teams channel for everyone to post into.

Be sure to look for internal successes too, so you are championing colleague service – not just moments of great customer service.

Start a ‘You Are Awesome’ Whiteboard to Fill in Every Friday

You can even take this offline and start a ’You Are Awesome’ whiteboard for the team to fill in every Friday with their highlights of the week. This can really be anything your team want it to be, including inside jokes and funny moments of the week, as well as sharing great customer feedback.

This can all be on a dedicated whiteboard, which can be wiped down at the end of the week for a fresh start on Monday. Or even left up all week as a reminder of the positive things from the week before.

Share a “Moment of Magic” as Your Agents Walk out the Door

A great way to end a Friday shift is to share a “Moment of Magic” with your agents as they head out the door.

“This one needs a bit of preparation across the week, but if you can invite everyone to share an example of when they created a great experience for a customer, the manager can pick the best one to read out on a Friday as everyone heads home for the weekend.” – Shep Hyken, Chief Amazement Officer (CAO) at Shepard Presentations LLC

It’s a great way to make excellence more tangible. You aren’t just saying “well done, everyone”, you are sharing a specific example of success that everyone can learn from too.

Quick-Win Mood Boosters (Food)

Buy in Breakfast for Everyone

Why not buy in breakfast for everyone on a Friday? This could be as simple as providing a spread of supermarket croissants or ordering sausage sandwiches from a local café.

This can be a particularly effective initiative if your week ends with a Saturday shift for many of your agents, showing them a bit of TLC for showing up over the weekend.

It’s about taking care of them and making it more fun to be in work, as energy levels are inevitably dipping at the end of the week.

Take Your Top Performers Out for Lunch or a Milkshake

Fridays are a great opportunity to celebrate your top performers too!

You could make a habit of ending each week treating your best agents with an all-expenses-paid lunch with the senior leadership team, as a special thank you for all their hard work.

This idea can really flex depending on budget – whether it’s a milkshake at a local café, a McDonald’s, or even a high-end restaurant. Just make sure you are consistent week-on-week on the budget and location to keep things as fair as possible.

For more fresh ideas to help boost agent morale, read our article: 15 Surprises for Boosting Agent Morale

Raise a Toast to a Great Week

Every Friday afternoon, make time to raise a toast to a great week.

If you’re in a city location, where most of your agents use public transport, you could have a drinks fridge in the kitchen that’s filled up with a choice of beers or pre-mixed cocktails. If not, you could serve up soft drinks in champagne flutes for a sense of occasion.

Whatever you serve, make sure to gather everyone round to raise a toast before they head home for the weekend. It’s certainly 10 minutes well spent!

Quick-Win Mood Boosters (Games)

Invite Agents to “Turn Up, Tune In”

“‘Turn Up, Tune In’ encourages agents to work together in small groups to rewrite the lyrics of a well-known classic song, weaving in personal stories like “the worst job I ever had”, “my funniest date”, or “my biggest achievement”.

This isn’t just about fun (though there’s plenty of that). It’s also about building trust, encouraging vulnerability, and developing vocal confidence – skills that are essential for anyone working in the industry.” – Linsey Dempsey, Founder of EllaVoice

Have You Tried “Meme Friday”?

“Meme Friday is a great example of an end-of-week activity that always brings a smile. It’s as simple as inviting everyone to share memes on Teams or Slack or even via email, then have someone vote on the best one.

The winner then becomes the deciding judge for the next Friday’s round of memes.” – Sue Duris, Principal Consultant at M4 Communications, Inc.

If you are looking for some inspiration on memes you can share, read our article: 32 Call Centre Memes

Share Inspiring Quotes

Similarly, you could ask everyone to share their favourite or most inspiring quotes on a Friday – taking it in turns each week for a boost of positivity! It’s a simple idea that everyone can easily take part in but really helps to lift the mood.

To keep it fresh and interesting, you could choose different themes each week or month. For example, “share a quote that gets you through a bad day”.

Set up a Prize Cupboard (and Only Open It on Friday Afternoons!)

Put together a prize cupboard and open it every Friday to boost the end-of-week celebrations.

“We’ve got a prize cupboard which has just got small things in it, between the value of five and ten pounds.

If someone does something great on a Friday, they get to go to the prize cupboard to grab something.

The alcohol always goes first, of course!” – Chantal Mitchell, Customer Experience Manager at VIVID

Play Darts for Additional Time Off

Set up a dartboard and play for an early finish or a longer lunch break – determined by each agent’s score. The higher their score, the longer their break!

“Giving people additional time off on a Friday afternoon is, financially, a pretty good idea because it’s typically a quieter shift and puts a spring in agents’ steps too.

A really fun way to decide how much time to give people is to play darts across the day, where their total score determines how much longer their lunch break is or how much earlier they can finish that day. It really builds excitement on the floor…

And what’s the worst that could happen? Someone scores a bullseye and gets 50 minutes off the phone!” – Dara Kiernan, leadership development and contact centre consultant

You don’t have to play games for agents to earn an early finish either. Some contact centres offer agents the opportunity to work longer days on Mondays and Tuesdays to help tackle peak demand earlier in the week, in exchange for a mood-boosting early finish on a Friday.

Take Part in Virtual Meetings as Avatars – Instead of Your Usual Profile

“We all work from home on Fridays, so we’ve started doing Avatar Fridays, where we change the settings in Microsoft Teams to appear as an Avatar in all our meetings that day.

It’s really caught on and is a fun end to the week.” – Jamie Storer, Sr Manager, Workforce Optimization at Columbia Sportswear Company

Just remember to reset your settings before logging off for the weekend, so there’s no surprises on a Monday morning!

Embrace Fridays as an Opportunity for Extracurricular Activities

Host Product Launches on the Contact Centre Floor

If your agents are supporting customer queries about products (not services), a product launch can be a great way to have fun on a Friday.

To keep momentum, you could divide new product sets up, so you can explore one item each Friday, or keep this activity to small groups on rotation, so everyone gets a turn across the coming months.

This can also be a great opportunity for agents to stay familiar with products old and new, and get off the phones for a change of pace, as well as ensure they live and breathe the brand.

If you are looking for advice to make sure your agents champion your products and services, read our article: How to Ensure Agents Love Your Products and Services

Create Opportunities for Agents to Experience Life Outside the Call Centre

It can really help to engage agents in the bigger picture by getting them outside of the call centre environment to meet customers face to face – so why not build this into your Fridays?

Just like we heard at the AA Contact Centre in Cheadle, agents are given opportunities to go out on the road with the recovery team to see the service experience first-hand.

If this is more difficult with your brand, you could get your team involved in the local community instead, as we explored in our article on Easy Ways to Make Your Contact Centre More Charitable.

Invite Local Businesses Into Your Contact Centre

You could also try bringing the outside in – showing love and support to local businesses by inviting them into your contact centre to sell their cakes, crafts, or sweets.

You could even have a rota of a different business coming in every Friday, so there are always new surprises in store.

… And Finally, Make Sure Agents Don’t Take Any Worries Home With Them!

Always wrap up the week by taking a moment to think if there’s any new information that has come out in the last few days that could be worrying your agents.

“If an internal email has been sent out from the CEO about AI implementation, for example, agents may be quick to jump to conclusions that their job is on the line and take those worries home with them for the weekend.

It’s key that leaders proactively close the loop and quash any concerns to help their team stay mentally healthy.” – Clayton Drotsky, Director of Growth Crew Ltd

What Have You Tried to End the Week on a High in Your Contact Centre?

Join our LinkedIn community and let us know.

With thanks to the following people for sharing their thoughts and experiences for this article:

• Chantal Mitchell, Customer Experience Manager at VIVID
• Clayton Drotsky, Director of Growth Crew Ltd
• Dara Kiernan, leadership development and contact centre consultant
• Jamie Storer, Sr Manager, Workforce Optimization at Columbia Sportswear Company
• Linsey Dempsey, Founder of EllaVoice
• Shep Hyken, Chief Amazement Officer (CAO) at Shepard Presentations LLC
• Sue Duris, Principal Consultant at M4 Communications, Inc.

If you are looking for more ways to make your contact centre fun, read these articles next:

• Ways to Make Working in a Contact Centre Fun
• Kick-Start Your Next Team Engagement Day
• Employee Engagement Activities for Your Contact Centre

Author: Megan Jones
Reviewed by: Jo Robinson