Should we motivate contact centre agents with food?

Is food a good motivator in the contact centre? Well, our readers clearly think so. Here are a few ideas.

Food can be a great way to motivate your agents…

Hold a surprise free lunch and order in pizza

When it’s extremely busy we do ‘surprise’ free lunches (although we announce it a day in advance to avoid complaints about unused home-made lunches). This usually involves take-away pizza, kebabs or burgers.

We find that this really helps push through the workload and offers instant appreciation.

Contributed by: Mieke

Keep agents motivated with surplus amounts of fruit

Introduce ‘Fruity Fridays’ and keep agents motivated with surplus amounts of fruit on a Friday.

Contributed by: Emma

Throw meat pasties at people who yawn!

Before I come into a session the trainees are warned not to yawn when Nev’s speaking or he’ll lob something at your head.

But they still do it. So when all of a sudden a meat pasty hits them in the gob they’ve only got themselves to blame.

Contributed by: Nev Wilshire (an extract from Happy People Sell)

Give weekly performance updates accompanied by chocolate

On Fridays, I have an end of the week “huddle” for 10 minutes where I give weekly performance updates – accompanied by chocolate.

Productivity always seems to pick up with chocolate!

Contributed by: Josephine

Perk everyone up with a hot sausage roll

When you know the day is going to be hard, get everyone a hot sausage roll to perk them up a bit.

Contributed by: Andrew

Have a ‘food day’ and get everyone to bring something

We have a food day every so often, where colleagues cook food, and bring in savouries and sweet things like donuts, cakes and biscuits.

The whole office joins in and we have a great day.

Contributed by: David

Treat agents to donuts and pastries for breakfast

Once a week, I treat my agents to donuts and pastries for breakfast, or candy and cupcakes in the afternoon.

Contributed by: Josephine

Buy cream cakes for everyone to celebrate the boss’s birthday

The owner of a company I worked for used to buy cream cakes for everyone on her birthday.

Unsurprisingly, distributing 500+ cream cakes and making sure there was a balanced selection for every shift was a logistical nightmare!

Contributed by: Andrew

Give out free sweets to keep everyone buzzing on the phones

I’ve been giving out free sweets ever since I’ve had the call centre – you can’t beat a sugar rush to increase productivity.

Keep the sweets flowing, keep the beat going. Fill the staff with E numbers and they’re buzzing away on those phones.

Contributed by: Nev Wilshire (an extract from Happy People Sell)

Have free-flowing coffee and hot chocolate

We have free-flowing coffee and hot chocolate here in the office.

Pizza is also present in almost every team milestone.

Contributed by: David

Get your agents baking with “Cake Friday”

We used to have “Cake Friday” where a different member of the team would bring in the results of their baking labours each week.

Some weeks were better than others for obvious reasons. But it made for great team spirit, as well as full tummies.

Contributed by: Keith

Fresh fruit deliveries and “Hot Dog Fridays” go down well

We have weekly fresh fruit deliveries, as well as “Hot Dog Fridays” and Party Food Buffet days, which always go down well!

Contributed by: Iain

Celebrate birthdays with cake and ice cream

We have a birthday bash every month, and celebrate with cake and ice cream.

Contributed by: David

On busy days get the managers to do “trolley dolly” duties

On busy days, the managers will do “trolley dolly” duties – serving hot and cold drinks (with biscuits) to our team members to keep everyone refreshed.

Contributed by: Penny

Change Monday to Apple day

We have changed Monday to Apple day. Every Monday morning, all staff are provided with a green apple and a big smile.

The message is: we know it’s the first day of the week and we appreciate what you are doing. We also change to other fruits from time to time.

Contributed by: Ali

Surprise your agents with ice creams on a hot day

The last time we had some lovely weather I went out and bought 50 ice creams!

Not only did I have the instant hit through the surprise and appreciation, it also offered a couple of days’ banter at the expense of the agent who had 3 ice creams (never mind 2!).

Contributed by: Andrew

“Sugar Fridays” keep everyone buzzing at the end of the week

The call centre I used to work at had “Sugar Fridays” – all the brownie bites, gummy sweets and red bull you could stomach!

Unsurprisingly, we buzzed our way through our Friday targets!

Contributed by: Megan

Personally bake cakes to say thank you to top performers

I like to add a personal touch of thanks and bake cakes or make a fresh cheesecake.

It always puts a smile on people’s faces and serves an excellent purpose as a reward or a motivator!

Contributed by: Jon

But it isn’t always the best way…

Our company sees a 30% increase in body mass in the first 12 months

We stopped using food to motivate. Well, most foods. Our company sees a 30% increase in body mass in the first 12 months of working in our call centre environments.

We have also had two medical losses in the last two years due to Deep Vein Thrombosis. So we try to encourage everyone to leave their desks on break and walk around.

When we do offer food, it’s rare. We used to always have pizza parties and giant buckets of chicken. But now, it’s usually just coffee and bagels. The team seems happy with it. After all, they all know about their co-workers.

Contributed by: Travis

Agents have collapsed from drinking too many energy drinks

Energy drinks were banned in a contact centre I once worked in.

This was because one of the agents had collapsed and required urgent medical attention after drinking 5 energy drinks in one shift!

Contributed by: another one of Call Centre Helper’s readers

Agents were putting customers on hold to go and get a donut

In my last contact centre we introduced “Donut Fridays” to help our agents meet their targets on the last day of the week.

It all seemed to be going well until we realised that our agents were putting customers on hold when the donut trolley came round!

Contributed by: another one of Call Centre Helper’s readers

Read How to Motivate Staff in 25 Ways

What has been your experience of using food to motivate agents?

Author: Megan Jones
Reviewed by: Jo Robinson