How to Turn Errors Into Learning Opportunities

In every contact centre, mistakes happen. They are part of the job, whether it’s a small error on a call or a minor administrative slip.

But too often, errors are treated as problems to hide or punish.

Citizens Advice Gateshead has taken a different approach with a simple yet effective initiative: the Mistakes Trophy.

To find out how the Mistakes Trophy helps normalize mistakes, encourages learning, and builds a culture of openness and improvement, we spoke to John Pearson, Contact Centre Manager at Citizens Advice Gateshead.

Video: Why Everyone Needs a Mistakes Trophy in Their Contact Centre

Watch the video below to hear John explain why contact centres should have a Mistakes Trophy:

With thanks to John Pearson, Contact Centre Manager at Citizens Advice Gateshead, for contributing to this video.

This video was originally published in our article ‘Award-Winning Tips From Citizens Advice’

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What Is a Mistakes Trophy?

The Mistakes Trophy is a physical trophy that moves from desk to desk when someone makes a small mistake. It isn’t reserved for agents alone; managers and team leaders can receive it too, as John explains:

“In its most basic sense, it’s just a little trophy that jumps from desk to desk when people naturally make a little mistake.

Whether that’s just a slight error on a call, or a little bit of feedback, or anything like that. And it can land on any desk, including mine.”

How the Mistakes Trophy Works

The purpose is to normalize errors and remove the fear around making them, as by openly acknowledging mistakes, teams can share lessons and improve collectively.

“I think it normalizes the fact that everyone can make silly little mistakes. You know, everybody does a brilliant job, but people still do sometimes get things a little bit wrong, and it’s just a way of normalizing that and making it less scary when someone finds out that they might need to do something slightly different.”

The Mistakes Trophy is more than a fun token; it’s a simple tool that fosters learning, collaboration, and a culture where feedback is welcomed.

By embracing mistakes as opportunities, contact centres can improve performance, knowledge sharing, and team morale, all while creating an environment where people are confident to learn and grow.

“I think it was part of what we were trying to do to create a really good, positive team spirit. It goes back to when I was a team leader.

I was really conscious that I wanted people to celebrate things, so we had a little trophy which was a hero trophy which celebrated the good things, and we had a trophy that moved around if somebody did something silly.

So, they might have said something wrong on a call, or they might have filled something in on the system incorrectly, or in my case I might have booked in a meeting but not sent somebody some of the details of that meeting, for example.

And it was just there so that people didn’t worry if they got feedback, because feedback is so vital.”

3 Ways the Trophy Drives Learning and Engagement

Implementing a Mistakes Trophy drives engagement and learning, as well as making feedback accessible for every employee, as John continued:

“Feedback happens all of the time and people always worry naturally if they get some feedback about something that they could have done differently or better.

So, we used to move both of those trophies around. If somebody did something brilliant, the hero trophy appeared on the desk and they’d find out about that.

And if somebody did something that would be classed as a mistake, which is a broad umbrella, that would appear on their desk.”

Here are three ways the Mistakes Trophy helps in contact centres:

1. Promotes Open Conversations

When the Mistakes Trophy lands on someone’s desk, it sparks curiosity and conversation.

“The interesting thing as we started it was that the trophy for heroes moved around quite nicely, but it was the one for mistakes that really got people talking in a really sort of positive and fun way, where people would be looking and I mean if it turned up on my desk, the entire team would be looking at me wondering what I’d done. So I’d then have to confess, so to speak, what had gone wrong.”

Colleagues naturally ask, “What happened?” which prompts an honest discussion about what went wrong, why it happened, and how to avoid it in the future.

Unlike traditional coaching, this approach feels informal, engaging, and collaborative.

2. Encourages Peer Learning

Sharing mistakes doesn’t just highlight errors; it creates learning moments, for example, if an agent mis-handles a call or completes a task incorrectly, explaining the mistake allows others to learn from it.

It becomes almost like ongoing, on-the-job coaching that benefits the entire team, as John explained:

“But it really got people talking, and by that it helped people learn, because if somebody had made an error on a call and they shared that with someone, that’s sharing with the team, you know, a lesson that they’ve learned that hopefully somebody else can take forward and do something slightly different themselves.

And I think it was positioned very much as a fun thing. It wasn’t anything to beat anybody up with. It was absolutely there to try and get people to realize that that everybody makes mistakes – it’s normal. We just have to learn from that.”

3. Normalizes Feedback and Growth

Mistakes are framed as part of a positive learning culture rather than something to fear, as John concludes:

“And there’d be people who would be on calls who’d be desperate to finish that call. They’d do it right so they didn’t get the trophy, but they’d be desperate to get off there so they could find out what it was that the colleague had done, or if it was on my desk, what had I done?

People would be whispering to each other about what have they done, and what’s that for, and that sort of thing, and it would really prompt conversation in a way that the hero trophy didn’t prompt in the same way.

People tend to not talk too much about success. It’s a natural thing. I think we worry more about the things that go wrong than the things that go right.

But those conversations are really, really important because, as I’ve said, it really builds that culture of understanding that we all want to improve. We all want to do our best, and if we don’t, we all want to know what we can do to improve.”

By making errors visible in a light-hearted way, teams accept that no one is perfect, which helps build resilience, encourages continuous improvement, and strengthens trust across the contact centre.

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Author: Robyn Coppell

Published On: 18th Dec 2025 - Last modified: 23rd Dec 2025
Read more about - Video, Agent Performance, Employee Engagement, Employee Experience (EX), Incentives, John Pearson, Morale, Motivation, Performance Management, Videos