{"id":918210,"date":"2018-12-05T12:09:02","date_gmt":"2018-12-05T20:09:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/heartofthecustomer.com\/?p=5175"},"modified":"2018-12-05T18:40:42","modified_gmt":"2018-12-06T02:40:42","slug":"stop-bribing-your-employees-for-good-nps-scores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/stop-bribing-your-employees-for-good-nps-scores\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop Bribing Your Employees for Good NPS Scores"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re early in Customer Experience (CX) capability development, and I absolutely love it! We\u2019re discovering the best practices that our successors will take for granted; \u201cof course that\u2019s how you do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, being in this early stage means that some \u201cbest practices\u201d aren\u2019t. Some actually hinder the goal of improved CX \u2013 to create loyal customers who love your brand and come back time and again.<\/p>\n

One \u201cbest practice\u201d that can create a terrible customer experience is paying employees to achieve good NPS, or Customer Satisfaction, scores. This needs to stop.<\/p>\n

The idea comes from a good place. We know that incentives drive behavior. The research is clear that, even though we all feel we\u2019re <\/i>immune to it, pay sure seems to drive everybody else, so why wouldn\u2019t <\/i>you pay people to improve customer scores? Especially if we know (or believe) that these scores link with true loyalty.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the law of unintended consequences. Paying people for better NPS scores can result in a downgraded customer experience even when those scores improve.<\/p>\n

Paying for scores is using a sledgehammer \u2013 a big, heavy tool without nuance. Incented employees will go to great lengths to receive that pay. We\u2019ve all had this car dealership experience: \u201cis there any reason you couldn\u2019t give me a 10?\u201d It gets worse! I\u2019ve even been told, \u201cwe measure our success through survey scores, and I get in trouble with my boss if I don\u2019t get a 10,\u201d and \u201cmy performance is measured by your scores for overall satisfaction, so please consider that when filling out your survey.\u201d This last example was from a Microsoft support rep \u2013 it happens everywhere!<\/p>\n

But none of these are as blunt as the tactic used by our local ABRA Auto Body, who gave me a \u201csample survey<\/a>\u201d so I\u2019d know how to fill mine out. <\/p>\n

The problem is that, while there may be a link between NPS scores and business outcomes (which is an open question), it\u2019s difficult for an employee to draw a straight line between specific behaviors and a customer\u2019s likelihood to recommend. For example, should a call center rep ask about the weather and the customer\u2019s kids to build an emotional connection? Or should they focus just on the matter at hand to decrease effort? Either is a valid approach, which means reps will react differently, and your customers will never know what to expect.<\/p>\n

Paying for survey scores drives action. But is it the best action for your customers? Assuming your goal is to improve business outcomes like repeat customers and increased share of wallet, then incenting employees to beg for scores isn\u2019t the best method.<\/p>\n

What alternatives do we have? Here are three:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n
    Remove incentives altogether.<\/b><\/h5>\n

    Of course, this probably isn\u2019t your call. But it needs to be listed as an option. If you do this, you need to be careful. You don\u2019t want to send the message \u201cCustomer loyalty is no longer important to us, so we\u2019re going to stop paying for it.\u201d You also don\u2019t want to create a big pay cut. Instead, reallocate the money towards items that will reward employees for improved customer results, perhaps training or finding something to pay them for instead of a comprehensive, high-level CX score. For example, you could<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  2. \n
    Incent based on business metrics.<\/b><\/h5>\n

    You have to be careful to select the right metric and provide the management structure to ensure you get the right behaviors (see Wells Fargo<\/a>). The wrong business metric drives the wrong behavior just as bad survey incentives do. If you\u2019ve ever been on the line with a call center agent who\u2019s managed to Average Handle Time, you know what I mean. Incenting somebody to get off the line as quickly as possible ensures that some will hang up before the problem is fully resolved. This creates both an annoyed customer and increased call time as the next agent has to read through what was done the first time. Higher costs and more frustrated customers are the risks of doing this wrong, so be sure the business metrics align with a customer\u2019s interest. Number of calls isn\u2019t right \u2013 but perhaps number of repeat calls on the same topic is. Of course, ideal business metrics vary by role, which also makes it more challenging. If you do want to use survey scores, you could<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  3. \n
    Use a different score.<\/b><\/h5>\n

    I\u2019m not wading into the \u201cIs NPS\/Customer Satisfaction\/Customer Effort Score the right metric\u201d discussion, although I\u2019ve written on that plenty. Instead, I recommend focusing incentives on more actionable scores. Do you do a driver analysis on your surveys (this is a statistical methodology to see which questions most drive the item of interest, such as NPS)? If so, look at these to find which are most actionable. For example, if the top factor driving NPS is \u201csales rep knowledge,\u201d then incenting on this will ensure reps learn your product well. Yes, there may still be some unintended consequences, as reps may go into more detail than clients want. But at least this is aligned with what customers want and need, and it\u2019s easier to manage.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    On this last front, when I worked in the field of employee engagement, we knew that incenting managers on their team\u2019s engagement scores drove all kinds of bad behaviors. Stores would put up \u201c5\u201d balloons during the survey time, for example. Incenting them instead on \u201cin the last year, did your manager take action to improve based on your last engagement survey\u201d was harder to game and created the right kinds of behaviors. Can you do something similar?<\/p>\n

    Paying people to make customers happy makes a lot of sense and can certainly work in some situations, but you risk putting your teams in situations where it\u2019s a whole lot easier to take shortcuts and just ask for the scores.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    We\u2019re early in Customer Experience (CX) capability development, and I absolutely love it! We\u2019re discovering the best practices that our successors will take for granted; \u201cof course that\u2019s how you do it.\u201d
    \nUnfortunately, being in this early sta…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7586,"featured_media":897942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[128,84,14,92,94,332],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918210"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7586"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=918210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/897942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=918210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=918210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=918210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}