Best 11 Customer Service Games, Activities, and Training Ideas

Many people will tell you that work is not all fun and games, but in reality, this can’t be further from the truth. Every work activity out there can be learned and improved with a little bit of creativity and some games – and customer support is no different.

It’s a highly responsible job as agents are on the frontline of your company, so you need to train them on the best practices and scenarios they can face. Instead of telling them to read a boring handbook or sit through a course, let them play some games and have fun.

Today, we’ll show you how training your customer support team can be engaging and educational at the same time. Let’s dig in.

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How do creative activities improve customer service?

There’s nothing better than learning through practice, especially when you do so with a bit of laughter and fun. It is a chance for your team to bond and create strong relationships that can last for years.

Implementing various games, either in real-life or digitally, is a fantastic opportunity for your team to:

• learn new skills
• improve their approach to customer service
• eliminate recurring and common mistakes
• learn from each other and grow together

Here are our top choices for games and activities that your customer service team can try today.

The 11 Best Customer Service Games, Activities, and Training Ideas

There are many skills your employees need in order to provide top-notch customer service, including:

• Staying professional while interacting with angry customers
• Knowing how to take advantage of critical thinking skills
• Being good at verbal communication

To help you prepare and train your staff to be better at what they do, we have a helpful list of effective games, training ideas, and more. They will all do a great job at perfecting your team’s customer service skills.

Improving critical thinking, attention to detail, and listening skills:

Attention to detail, good listening skills, and the ability to take a critical approach in different situations are absolute essentials nowadays. If your customer service staff can’t pay attention to detail, they may not be able to resolve clients’ issues.

If your employees can’t listen, customers will get annoyed. Finally, not being able to think critically in various scenarios can cast a bad light on your agents’ performance and, as a result, affect your company’s reputation.

• Brain teasers 

Brain teasers are short puzzles that encourage critical thinking, paying attention to detail and careful listening. Here’s a great example of such a game. It reveals which of your customer service staff members are the best listeners and critical thinkers (YouTube video linked in the heading).

• Role play games  

Your staff also need to handle situations on their own with the right approach. To practice this skill, why don’t you arrange some group role play games? Some examples of role-play scenarios include giving feedback and learning to show empathy.

Role-play games are a group activity, so it’s a perfect opportunity for employees to rate one another’s skills, provide constructive feedback, and give advice. Below you can see a nice and thorough description of what such games could look like (YouTube video linked in the heading).

Bridging communication gaps and connecting:

Moving on, let’s focus on the topic of communication gaps and improving communication in general. During interacting with customers, words may get lost along the way and misunderstandings can occur. This leads to situations that are confusing not only for a customer but also for the agent.

• Mock call center tests

To make sure your agents are prepared for everything, it’s always helpful to conduct some mock call center tests for customers with poor signal or connection issues.

It’s up to you what type of customer interactions you want to train. Check out how well these trainees did during their mock call center tests: (YouTube video in linked the heading).

• Deaf telephone game

Who hasn’t played the deaf telephone game at least once in their lives? This game is an interesting way of training how to communicate effectively and listen carefully., It also empowers relationships between your staff.

Here’s one of many examples of what it looks like in practice: (YouTube video linked in the heading).

Providing better in-person service

Customer support can also be done in person and many of the same rules apply here as well. There are many ways to train your front-end employees. You can find two of them below.

• A customer service online quiz

Online quizzes are great tools for improving your customer support team’s performance and boosting morale. They’re super easy to do and can be a great learning experience as well.

You could implement an incentive program in your workplace and offer some nice gifts for employees who actively engage in such fun quizzes.

Training explanation skills and methods 

Do you get customers calling your company from different places around the world? Sometimes things may get lost in the translation and communication becomes difficult due to language nuances. This is especially true if you work in a very specific industry, such as technical-oriented services.

• Drawing in pairs

To minimize the communication getting confusing and avoid misunderstandings, you can pair your customer staff and let them draw something. The video below shows a very easy way to do this. You only need a few chairs. One of your agents draws something on a piece of paper and instructs the other person to draw the same picture. Without seeing the original one. All they can use are words: (YouTube video linked in the heading).

Facilitating remote team collaboration

This part of the article  is useful if you have a remote team 

• Jamboard – a virtual whiteboard 

One thing to try is Jamboard, a virtual whiteboard that your staff can use no matter where they are located. It’s simple, yet can entertain your team for hours and improve team collaboration.

• Slides with friends  

Trying to make your team collaborate together is a difficult task. But it doesn’t have to be. From happy hour games, through real-time surveys, all the way up to funny ice breakers and more, SlidesWith has everything to kick off your team collaboration in the best possible way. 

Dealing with difficult customers

When you interact with a difficult customer, it’s always challenging to figure out the best way to communicate with them. 

• Going over recorded phone calls

If you’re looking to educate your customer service staff on the best ways to handle difficult customers, you can do so by listening to recorded phone calls during meetings and training courses. The recordings can be also used for recruitment processes, or to identify who your clients are and how to handle them in the best way possible.

To start recording your phone conversations, you might want to get a good piece of call center software with a call recording feature. While there are many solutions out there, our recommendation is CloudTalk.

• Workshop with a psychologist 

If angry, pretentious, or aggressive customers are a common occurrence at your workplace, you can organize engaging workshops with a psychologist for your frontline employees.

They help your agents act professionally. This can be difficult when talking to angry customers who can’t calm down, no matter what. A good psychologist is a perfect solution to show your employees all the do’s and don’ts – you’ll be surprised how effective it can be.

Over to you

Wanting to improve your customer service is one thing, but knowing how to do so effectively is a whole different story. We hope this article gave you some creative ideas to implement in your company. 

We listed a nice variety of choices from fun games, through workshop ideas, to remote solutions. Even something as simple as going through recorded phone calls to analyze different situations can have a great impact on the quality of your customer service.
Yet, there are also plenty of other features that can enhance your agents’ performance. Don’t hesitate to check them out now.