Freshdesk Arcade 'gamifies' customer support for better engagement, enhanced efficiency

Freshdesk Inc., a SaaS-based customer support platform, has launched Freshdesk Arcade, a new 'gamification' feature that enables companies to turn their customer support into a game to better engage help desk agents. Once the gamification is done, every support ticket becomes a chance for the agents to score points and they can also receive bonus points for making customer support experience exceptional. They can also compete for trophies, go on quests and win badges and recognition with every ticket.

While agents start as Novices, they can level up to Pro Support Reps by earning points. There is a leader board for tracking the progress of agents and special trophies like Sharpshooter (for resolving a query at first go), Speed Racer (for shooting out answers fast), Wow Champ (for winning awesome satisfaction ratings from customers) and Most Valuable Player (for the overall top scorers) are also awarded to them in tune with their accomplishments. Agents can also lose points for negative reviews.

"When your agents are resolving complaints (sifting through piles of support tickets and answering customer queries all day), it is easy for the help desk to run out of steam. So how do you keep your customer support teams motivated round the clock? Since they don't get to play as much as they would like, we thought we would bring the game to them," read a company blog post.

The startup was set up by Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy in 2010. It offers an on-demand customer support software and provides services like multi-channel social support (e-mail, website and social networks like Twitter and Facebook) for businesses.

The game also enables the creation of custom quests to get specific business needs fixed. See video for more.

The company has made Freshdesk gamification available with a new 'Estate' plan that costs $40 per agent per month. But it is also offering it free of cost to customers who are already on the 'Garden' plan ($25 PAPM). Additionally, current customers on the 'Sprout' ($9 PAPM) or the 'Blossom' ($16 PAPM) plan can also make use of the Freshdesk arcade by upgrading to the 'Garden' plan (instead of the Estate) before October 15, 2012. See video for more.

Earlier this year, Freshdesk updated its customer support platform by launching what it called 'version 2.0' of its helpdesk platform. It later unveiled 'private' customer support for businesses on Facebook. Currently, the startup has more than 1,000 global customers across 50 countries, out of which more than half are paid subscribers. It also plans to add cloud telephony to its service bouquet.

The startup had raised Series A funding of $1 million from Accel Partners last December, followed by a Series B round of $5 million in April this year, from existing investors Accel Partners and Tiger Global Management. In the same space, Zendesk (a direct competitor) recently raised $60 million in its Series D funding.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)