Community Management and Trust & Safety: These are two of the industry’s biggest emerging growth areas within CX. With gaming becoming increasingly accessible on various online platforms, players can now team up or play against just about anyone, anywhere in the world. This has resulted in the growth of several large gaming communities around the world, making community management and trust & safety in interactions a key priority for CX teams. A lack of management in these areas can transform a game from a success to a disaster, with details of what went wrong spreading like wildfire on social media. Some examples of Trust & safety issues include the appropriation of gamer profiles, credits, personal information, being impersonated by other players, and sometimes being hijacked by bots. Community management includes monitoring what is said on chat rooms between players and flagging issues such as abuse, bullying and misrepresenting the game and players.

Peak Management: In every industry, there are times when business is a lot busier than the rest of the year. In the gaming sector, the fourth quarter is an important time of the year. Demand is at an all-time high with a higher number of people playing games as they spend time at home with family and friends and it is the busiest season for sales due to the holiday shopping frenzy. As a result, demand for customer experience support is at its peak. A similar uptick takes place when a company launches a new game or a slew of new games. During these moments, the ability to scale up CX resources without a delay, while maintaining consistency in quality is critical. This can be achieved by meticulous planning and training of resources and close collaboration with brand partner teams. At Awesome, we follow a well-defined process to provide that extra flexibility by working together in areas such as:

• • Global footprint recruitment proactiveness on profiling database of agents

• • ‘On-call agents’ model

• • Peak specific training on TOP CALL drivers

• • Activation of Tier 0 skill and update IVR's

• • Utilization of voice bot to collect customer details (status of repairs, status of availability, etc.)

Agent Recruitment & Training: In the gaming industry, agent training goes beyond procedures and solution finding. A critical part of being an effective CX agent in this industry is understanding and creating engagement with the games and the culture/profile of the gamer, their intricacies and characters, and issues that come up. Additionally, at Awesome we assign trainees to industries/lines of business (LOB) that are of interest to them so they can develop their maximum potential and demonstrate a high level of engagement with their work. And our CX agents are required to experience the game firsthand at least for an hour during their shifts with the goal to develop a deep and intuitive understanding of customers’ questions and experiences, and to build a connection/engagement between the agent and the brand/games.

The most successful CX teams are those that operate like an extension of the brand, which is what we strive for at Awesome. However, that doesn’t mean we expect the brands to recruit and train the agents. We handle recruitment and training efforts based on the brand partner’s guidelines and work culture, so they don't have to use their time and resources to get the team up to speed on the company’s values, culture, and products/services. We supplement the company’s content with onboarding training that includes soft skills, focus on language adjustment, positioning, and approach to complex queries regardless of the LOB to be supported. At the same time, we have continuous training modules, and we increase engagement and knowledge by having our agents participate in cross-LOB forums to develop a 360º view on the support and feedback from gaming communities.

Attrition Management: High attrition has a negative impact on CX teams no matter the industry. But given the depth of information agents need to acquire about the games they are servicing, and the time it takes to imbibe that level of knowledge are a significant investment for the CX team. This is why maintaining the lowest possible attrition rate in the gaming industry should be a priority. The cost of retraining agents is much higher than the investment required to keep them. Awesome invests in the right profiling and agent skills/interests creating a culture of happiness and engagement to minimize attrition by offering our employees perks, health benefits, down time during the workday - for eg. time to play video games as well an active voice and participation on major project challenges

Insights: CX agents are at the frontline of receiving feedback from customers, which is an incredibly valuable asset for our brand partners. A good CX program should have a process in place to communicate that feedback back to client teams in an insightful way. That means analyzing the raw feedback and sharing it with our partners with actionable ideas and solutions. One example is understanding certain patterns of customer questions and pain points and offering preemptive solutions before those issues are escalated to CX agents. These types of insights result in cost savings for the brand and demonstrate to our partners that the CX team is an invaluable asset to them.

VIP White Glove and 24/7 Support:To ensure that high-spending gamers receive the level of detailed and quick support they expect and deserve, our CX programs include a white glove offering that ensures a high level of customer satisfaction. This is designed specifically to address the issues and concerns high-spending gamers are likely to face, including personal data safety, credits, account hijacking etc. Additionally, our teams are available around the clock to ensure faster response times.

If you'd like to learn more about how Awesome CX can support gaming brands with their CX needs, please reach out to info@awesomecx.com.