Boost Your Customer Service Team - 10 Best Team Building Activities

Customer service teams are the face and voice of most establishments, and that responsibility comes with a lot of pressure.

June 13, 2022
Press the button to generate random icebreaker questions.
There are 300 more icebreaker questions at the bottom of the article
How would you describe your job to a five year old?
What season would you be?
What is a weird food you have tried? Would you eat it again?
What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Would you go in the mother-ship with aliens if they landed on Earth tomorrow?
What is your favorite season?
Do prefer working from home or the office?
What is your earliest memory of this job?
What is the best thing you have bought so far this year?
What is the earliest book you remember?
If you had to move to another country, which one would you choose?
You are the best criminal mastermind in the world. What crime would you commit if you knew you would get away with it?
What is your favorite movie genre to watch?
What was the last thing you ate?
What person from history would you add to Mount Rushmore?
What is a weird fact you know?
What is your favorite part of working from home?
Were the Spice Girls a good team?
Imagine you can instantly learn any language. Which would you choose?
If you could live in any state, which state would you pick?
Which fictional team is the best team of all time?
What did you want to be when you grew up?
What do you usually eat for a quick lunch?
What simple food will you never eat?
Show us the weirdest thing you have in the room with you right now.
Would you rather stay at a hotel or an AirBNB?
What is your favorite movie genre to watch?
Are you more productive in the morning or at night?
Who is someone in your community that makes a difference?
Who was your most unique pet?
Choose one famous person from history you want on your team during a zombie apocalypse.
What is a good way to give back to the community?
Which song could you listen to over and over again?
Is Hugh Grant funny?
What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?
Would you want to have an imaginary friend today? Did you have one as a child?
What actor or actress would you want to play you in the movie about your life?
What is the best super power?
What is your New Years resolution?
You can only eat one food again for the rest of your life. What is it?
What is the best work holiday?
What is the first gift you remember receiving?
Would you rather join Metallica or Backstreet Boys?
What is the best example of a community you have seen?
What is an easy way to do something nice for someone?
Show us your phone background and tell the story behind why you picked this image.
What was your first job?
Pick any band to play at your funeral.
If you could have an unlimited supply of one thing for the rest of your life, what would you pick?
Which superpower would you give to your arch enemy?
What is the most obscure superpower you would want?
What emoji best describes how you are feeling right now?
If you could live in any country, which country would you pick?
Would you rather live in a city or a town?
What is your favorite holiday?
What is something you accomplished as part of a team?
What is your standard office lunch?
What is your most used phone app?
What is your favorite season?
Have you ever won something as a team?
Imagine you are a professional baseball player. What is your introduction song?
Beach holiday or ski trip?
Have you ever been to a funny comedy show?
Would you rather live at the North Pole or the South Pole?
What is your favorite song to sing?
If you could live in any state, which state would you pick?
Imagine you could teleport anywhere. Where would you go right now?
What is the most unusual job you have heard of?
What was the last thing you ate?
You can visit any fictional time or place. Which would you pick?
What do your family and friends think you do all day?
What movie do you wish you could watch again for the first time?
Show us your most-used emoji.
What was the most unique style or fashion trend you ever embraced?
What movie defined your generation?
You are stranded on a remote desert island. Are you alone or with your worst enemy?
What is your favorite knock-knock joke?
Have you ever told someone Santa is not real?
Do you know how to speak more than one language?
On a scale of 1 – 10, how much of a team player are you?
What is your #1 recommendation in this city?
What is your favorite holiday?
What bucket list item do you most want to check off in the next six months?
What is your favorite mythical creature?
What was the first way you made money?
If you could be great at any Olympic sport, which would it be?
Which song could you listen to over and over again?
When did you start liking/hating mushrooms?
Where is your favorite vacation spot?
Do you take your PTO all at one time, or another way?
Which show do you remember most from your childhood?
Which beverage goes best with pizza?
Would you want to have a personal assistant follow you around everywhere and do what you asked of them?
Have you ever met your idol?
What did you want to be when you grew up?
Would you rather live 100 years in the past or 100 years in the future?
What is your hobby?
When you are alone in the car, what volume is the music at?
Imagine you no longer have to work. How would you spend a Tuesday?
What is your favorite type of sandwich?

Today's workforce is more demanding and result-driven than it was years ago. Employees want to work for a company that values employee engagement and recognizes their hard work. On the other hand, companies need employees who can do the job. Collecting customer feedback is also more needed.

While these are the expectations, they aren't always the reality.

Customer service teams are the face and voice of most establishments, and that responsibility comes with a lot of pressure and team accountability. You could have the best team in the industry, leading the way for other companies within your field, but without great customer service, satisfaction and loyal customers, it won't matter. It'll seem like just another company with an average product or service.

While you could teach your team and team leader to put in more hours and effort no matter what, it'll inevitably lead to an exhausted team that constantly overpromises and underdelivers. The key is creating a great work environment to play up to their current level of work performance and spark them into more action.

There are many ways to do this. They include increased pay, customer service recognition activities, customer surveys, incentives, team accountability exercises, customer service training games etc. But, team-building exercises are at the top of our list.

Assembly's workflows make it easy for customer service teams to communicate, collaborate, and have fun together. Book a demo to see what customer service team-building activities can help your customer support team shine.

What kind of activity is team building?

Team-building is a collective term for various activities or events that enhance social relations and define roles within teams using collaborative methods. Team-building activities are designed to help team members get to know each other better, improve their communication skills, and increase productivity. A team-building event can be simple or complex through challenging or fun tasks.

So, how can teamwork promote customer service?

Call center team games can work on multiple levels. First, they help people get to know each other better by breaking down barriers. Second, they foster trust among group members, which leads to better communication, personal accountability and a more cohesive team. And third, team bonding activities allow employees to explore their strengths and weaknesses while encouraging employee engagement exercises to boost staff morale.

Benefits of team building activities:

These activities aim to:

- Improve communication skills

- Incorporate trust and respect among team members

- Increase productivity

- Identify strengths and weaknesses in your team

- Leadership and problem-solving skills

-  Accept responsibility

- Reduced turnover rates (by increasing retention)

Team building is no small feat. Assembly is here to empower your team to succeed and give your culture a boost. Book a demo to see what customer service team-building activities can help your customer support team shine.

What are the four main kinds of team-building activities?

1.      Communication activities

These activities teach customer service team members how to work and relate to each other. They can be conducted in various ways but usually involve collaboration, discussion, and fun activities. To be done successfully, they should reflect the overall company culture, which means tying the exercises into your company values.

2.      Problem-solving and decision-making activities

Customers mostly need quick and accurate responses to their inquiries and challenges. So, these activities aim to build your customer service team to be confident in their ability to see customer problems and make good decisions. Activities with time limits and tasks that require customer service reps to think outside the box are great for this session. They can help the team improve their conflict resolution and problem-solving skills.

3.      Adaptability and planning activities

The ability to adapt and plan is essential because of the demanding nature of customer service jobs. In creating activities to improve these, organizations can focus on fun roleplay activities. These activities enable employees to practice vital new skills and explore new perspectives through customer service games in a safe environment where they're free from real-world consequences or customer complaints.

4.      Trust-building games

Building trust with your customer service team member is a good idea and critical for long-term success. To build trust in your customer service team, you need to encourage them to be open with each other. These activities also facilitate bonding and create a safe environment to take risks.

Team building is no small feat. Assembly is here to empower your customer service reps to succeed and give your culture a boost with team collaboration, improved customer service experience, and valuable lessons. Schedule a meeting to start for FREE.

10 team building activities for customer service teams

You're probably wondering, what is the best employee engagement activity? But, the question should be; besides customer service training what are the activities to improve customer service?

There's no perfect activity that automatically revives customer service teams. Team building exercises combine activities that help team members become better employees, colleagues, and individuals.

So, whether it's done indoors, outdoors, or virtually, it's important to choose activities that will challenge your team how they need to be challenged.

Let's jump right in!

In-Person team-building activities

1.      Scavenger hunt

This activity can be done in the office lounge or outdoors and you can either group coworkers or pair them into teams. Scavenger hunts involve hiding items or small gifts around the office. It could be candy, gift cards, trinkets, or work-related items like pens, jotters, etc. The team that finds the most items in the shortest time wins.

This activity aids team collaboration, creative thinking, and problem-solving skills.

2.      Business problems

Teams of 3 or 4 coworkers (depending on the team size) are given a piece of paper with a hypothetical business problem, and they try to solve it within a given time. The team with the most practical solution in the shortest time wins. Multiple rounds with progressively complex scenarios can make the activity more engaging.

This activity can improve the team's problem-solving skills, business knowledge, and excellent customer service and satisfaction skills.

3.      Team Draws

This activity is timed and similar to charades, but team members will describe images instead of words. It involves two coworkers per team; each team member faces the other. One coworker receives a piece of paper with an object, place, or animal and is tasked with describing what's on the paper without using words or using indirect words. The team with the higher number of correct guesses wins.

This team-building activity improves creativity, positive customer interaction, trust, and communication skills.

4.      Human Knot

This classic team-building activity involves different teams with members standing in a circle, shoulder-to-shoulder. Each person reaches out with their left hand and grabs the left hand of another person in the circle who is not directly beside them. Then they do the same with their right hands, resulting in an intertwined human knot.

 The goal of the activity is to untangle the knot without letting go of anyone's hand. And the first team to separate wins.

The team bonding activity teaches problem-solving, collaboration, good communication skills, and trust.

5.      Game of Possibilities

This activity is a great way to inspire creative thinking and push employees out of their comfort zone. The host selects an item, and team members can take turns describing and demonstrating new ways to use the item without speaking. While the presenter demonstrates, other team members will try to guess what they're doing.

This game teaches non-verbal communication, as well as innovation and resourcefulness.

Virtual Team-Bonding Exercises

6.      Writing Letters from Customer Perspectives

This activity has two parts – the writing and the discussion.

Everyone recounts a memorable positive interaction with a customer and writes a thank you letter from the customer's perspective. Everyone then proceeds to read their letters aloud, and the team discusses each other's letters in turns – what was great, what could have been better, etc.

This activity helps employees analyze improved customer satisfaction and customer feedback. It helps the team members see things from a former customer service agent's perspective through analysis and effective communication.

7.      Yes, and …

Yes, and … is a game that emphasizes adopting a positive mentality in customer interactions, especially as customer service professionals.

This game is played by inviting two people up at a time. One person starts by giving them an opening statement, then one of the players continues with "Yes, and… a statement”, adding an additional sentence. The second player continues, and the players keep going back and forth until the time is up.

The game aims to teach active listening, a positive mentality, and the skill to resist the urge to belittle anyone's thoughts or ideas.

8.      Kahoot

Kahoot is a learning platform that allows teams to have quizzes, trivia, open-ended questions, polls, word clouds, and interactive question-and-answer presentations. With this, companies can input relevant questions to Kahoot, and group team members can play against each other. It can be questions on core values, a fun game, facts about employees, or need-to-knows for customer service professionals.

This activity creates a fun but developmental platform for the employees.

9.      Personality Tests

Knowing people better often opens doors to building trust, collaborating more, and being more productive. Team members can take personality tests together, and via video conferencing, they take turns guessing each other's results. 

Some personality tests to try are:

-        16 Personalities

-        VIA Character

-        Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

10.   Typing speed challenge

This exercise will benefit customer support reps, service professionals and contact center agents. The organizers can create a challenge to see who types the fastest. It can be a weekly or monthly activity with a leaderboard. And team members can constantly try to break the existing record.

This activity helps the team members improve their accuracy and typing speed.

Starting A Team-Building Culture

Team-building activities are a great employee engagement strategy that won't need to be reserved for expensive, three-day office retreats. You can incorporate them into normal workdays without breaking the clock or the bank or using employee empowerment flows. And you'll see the benefits through a stronger team, improved customer expectations, and positive customer feedback. 

Many Customer Service Teams use Assembly's solutions to make customer service agents improve internal culture, make work fun and engage the teammates. Schedule a meeting to start for FREE.

Browse our Free Employee Recognition Guide

Get the foundational knowledge on creating an employee recognition program that boosts employee engagement and helps them feel valued.

Explore Guide

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Assembly SOC 2 compliant?

Yes, at Assembly, security is a top priority. Each quarter, we have ongoing security work that is everyone’s responsibility. While we maintain a strong security posture, it was important for us to prove to our customers that we do everything we claim to do. This led us to pursue a SOC 2 Type II report that would provide evidence of our compliance with industry gold-standard security practice.

What's the ROI for employee recognition?

There is study after study showing that employee recognition leads to increased engagement. This in return creates an environment where employees are happier and more motivated which increase productivity and reduces voluntary turnover significantly. In order to filled critical roles, companies tend to spend nearly twice the value of an annual salary. Assembly is an investment in your employees that supports your bottom line.

Does Assembly offer longer-term contracts?

Yes, we will offer contracts for companies with longer-term agreements to help larger customers have more certainty around future costs.

The minimum agreement term is a 12-month subscription.

Does Assembly offer onboarding support?

We do and for FREE! Any new customer needing further support to get started with Assembly to ensure you're set up for success can request custom onboarding support. Improving your employee experience is about much more than just using our amazing software; it’s about transforming your business to create a workplace that people love. That’s much easier to do with the personal support and advice from our passionate people experts.

Is there a free version of Assembly?

Yes. We offer a completely free plan for up to 50 team members. This plan is intended for teams or organizations that are looking to get started with an employee engagement tool. Keep in mind, this plan is limited in features.

All customers can open an Assembly account for free and get started without a credit card. Then you can change plans as necessary.

How much do rewards cost?

At the time of redemption (when your employees exchange their points for a paid reward) you'll pay face value. If a reward is a $10 Amazon gift card, your cost will be $10. All paid rewards are billed for on a monthly basis.

The good news is that you don't have to pay for rewards upfront because we only charge you when points are redeemed, not when they're earned.

Does Assembly offer discounts?

We offer discounts or educational or charitable organizations. In order to secure a discount, you'll first need to book a demo with a customer support specialist.

For all other organizations, we are willing to consider longer-term agreements in exchange for discounts. To set up annual plans or longer, you will need to book a demo with a customer support specialist.

How do I cancel my plan if needed?

If you're on a month to month plan, you can go here and cancel anytime. If you're having concerns or need help setting up your account for success, you can always book a demo with a customer support specialist.

If you're on a longer-term custom plan, you'll need to reach out to your customer support specialist to cancel your account or email us at support@joinassembly.com.

What customizations are available?

Great question! You can customize your core values to match your organization's to boost and track alignment. You can change your currency from the 🏆 emoji (our default) to any emoji of your choice. You can swap our logo for your own. You can also set up company culture rewards such as, "Lunch with the CEO," "Buy a book on us," and so much more!

Who can give or receive recognition?

While we recommend a peer to peer set up where anyone in your organization can give or receive recognition, you can set up Assembly however you want. If you need to limit the people who can give or receive recognition, that's perfectly fine and can be done from your Admin, here.

What integrations are available?

Assembly connects to the tools your employees use every day to offer an easy, seamless experience with minimal change management.  

Assembly has integrations with HCM/HRIS systems like ADP, Google, Office 365, and Slack. We also integrate with communication tools like Slack and Teams so you and your employees can access Assembly wherever they work now.

What's your average adoption rate?

That depends on the company's permissions set up. That said, over 90% of the employees on Assembly's platform are recognized on a monthly basis. That means nearly every employee across all of our customers are receiving regular recognition from their peers, managers, or leadership. We're extremely proud of this.

Must rewards be set up to use Assembly?

They are not required. You can use Assembly without having rewards set up. However, we don't recommend it if you intend to have a high adoption and usage rate. You can always keep the costs down by offering internal culture rewards that are fulfilled by you internally.

Are points required to use Assembly?

No, you can remove allowances from anyone or everyone. It's up to you but we do recommend using points whether they're worth a real dollar value or not. Companies that use points have a much higher engagement rate even if those points don't exchange for real dollars.

Could find the answer you are looking for?

Please schedule time with an expert and we will help you to get all your questions answered