Incentive Survey Results

Survey of Incentive Programs

Incentive Programs – The bad news

Short livedPrior behaviors return

No connection with agent score cardsHigh maintenance

Try to keep freshManual input & update resultsWhat prizes to buy

Only 1/3 are successful

Not Measured

Negative Results 20% - 40% Improvement

The good news - We all can do betterDr. Aubrey Daniels

DiscretionaryEffort

“Have-to-do” curve

R-Base $

“Want-to-do” curveR+Incentive $

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS

20% - 40%

People will produce more to achieve something they want, than they will to avoid something they don’t want.  B.F. Skinner

30 Contact Centers from:

USACanadaSouth AfricaColumbia Opera-

tionsHR

IT/Telecom

Other

Your role in the company

Industries:

Banking/Fin’l Svcs

Outsourcing

OtherMkt/advertising

BPO

Consumer Products

Hospitality

Telecom

High Tech Utility

OTHER:One CallCredit Monitoring Roadside Assistance

Number of sites in your company:

0

1

2-5

6-1010+

0

1

2-5

6-10

10+

What does your contact center do?

Customer service Sales / reserva-tions

Collections Technical support0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

80.0%

90.0% 83.3%

60.0%

30.0%33.3%

OTHER:Locate request ticket processingLead GenerationTelemarketing

How do you communicate?

Phone Chat E-mail Postal mail Kiosk Other0.0%

20.0%

40.0%

60.0%

80.0%

100.0%

120.0%

100.0%

23.3%

83.3%

60.0%

6.7%

16.7%

OTHER:FaxSMSwalk-in serviceInternet fax

Types of Contact Centers

Inbound = 69%

Home agents = 30%

B to C = 76%

Employee feedback = 60%

Control at contract center = 46%Control at corporate level = 15%

Combined control = 38%

Types of Contact Centers

All qualifiers are rewarded = 80%

Minimum requirement = 88%

Individual awards only = 19%

Team awards only = 3%

Both types = 77%

Who is eligible?

OTHER:Coaches & trainers

Agent

Supe

rviso

r/tea

m le

ader

Manag

er

Direct

or VP0.0%

20.0%

40.0%

60.0%

80.0%

100.0%

120.0%100.0%

61.5%

34.6%

11.5% 7.7%

How many agents (FTE)?

1-2526-50

51-100

101-150

151-200201-250

251-500

501-1000

1001-2500

5000+

Agent attrition %?

Between hiring and new hire

training

In new hire train-ing

In the first 90 days after new

hire training

Annually after the first 90 days

.00

5.00

10.00

15.00

20.00

25.00

5.60

10.48

17.57

20.71

Turnover Attack Zone

“Attacking” and lowering turnover in the early days of employment will lower the overall rate

Incentives for new-hires

Tenure Incentives for the first 90 daysDecrease in frequency

Increase in $ valueGoal Reward

1st day of employment 5

Pass daily quiz 5

5 days of employment 10

Complete phase 1 of training 20

15 days of employment 35

Complete phase 2 of training 50

30 days of employment 100

60 Days of employment 200

Incentives for new-hires

Encourage “bonding”Learn names of fellow new hires

Peer mentoring

Live observations

Learn names of other team members

Performance tips

Car pooling

Prizes?

OTHER:Tickets to Hockey, Concerts, Football

What kind of Prizes?

Choice

Real value

Redemptions

Re-Loadable Debit Cards74%

Amazon1%

Local20%

Gift Cards5%

What do you reward?

OTHER:Exceeding average handling times ticket qualityKey metrics: SPHBirthdaysProductivity

How long do programs run?

OTHER:Annually for attendance

Year round Quarterly Monthly Weekly Daily Hourly0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

80.0%

90.0%

61.5%

42.3%

80.8%

42.3%

26.9%

7.7%

How much do you spend?(percent of payroll)

Is it worth the money?

Spending:53% do not track the spending

ROI:80% do not track the ROI

What has improved?

OTHER:Better ticket quality

Reduce

d e

arl

...

Impro

ved a

t...

Impro

ved a

d...

Bett

er

mora

le

Gre

ate

r sa

les

More

money ...

Bett

er

call q

u...

NA

- w

e d

on...

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

11.5%

42.3%38.5%

53.8%

38.5%

19.2%

57.7%

15.4%

How often can rewards be earned?

OTHER:Bi weeklywe only have weekly programs occasionallyOccasionally throughout the month for specific activities

Daily Weekly Monthly Quarterly Annually0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

80.0%

90.0%

42.3%34.6%

76.9%

19.2% 19.2%

How often can rewards be redeemed?

OTHER:Annuallybi-weeklyRewards points are paid after $25.00 earned if they request the gift card at that time or they can let them build until December.

Multiple times per

day

Daily Weekly Monthly Quarterly Only at the conclusion of the pro-

gram

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

11.5%

26.9%34.6%

57.7%

23.1% 23.1%

Drawings, games, randomized value?

YesNo

Games are effective

How Games Works

Achievement PrizesPointsGame

Simple and proven waysto change behaviors.

$ 50$ 20 x 2

$ 10 x 4

$ 5 x 8

$ 1 x 140

Who administers it?

OTHER:VP of Operations Events & Communications CoordinatorA national team of 2-3, and one designated contact at each centerOperations

Employee team Manager Human resources0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

80.0%

90.0%

19.2%

80.8%

34.6%

Internal or Outside help?

Use outside help to:Create or run your program: 8%

To provide rewards/prizes: 15%

Internal FTE to manage: 1.65

What technology do you use?

OTHER:Often manually

Exce

l

Data

base

...

AC

D

Work

forc

e ...

Quality

/ c

o...

Speci

fic

inc.

..

NA

(none o

f...

0.0%10.0%20.0%30.0%40.0%50.0%60.0%70.0%80.0%90.0%

100.0% 88.5%

34.6% 30.8%42.3%

50.0%

34.6%

7.7%

Most successful contest?Team competitions traditionally work best because it pushes teams to perform as there is something for the supervisor and top performing agents. Every month, we run a variety of team promotions on products depending on where we are on our budget and that has given us the best results of all our programs.

Monthly draw that recognizes most improved agent (month-over-month)

It was easy to understand & meet the requirements; you earn a ticket, a ticket is drawn & the winners get to choose a prize

Ad hoc chance for all to win

Large gift programs

Christmas theme run up in 2008 earning points in December towards trips, prizes, vouchers and time off.

Awarding two points for each time a behavior was exhibited during a month (obtaining a 2-year contract extension).

Co- values promotion

Most successful contest?We used a "star Trek" theme to promote a new service offering. Agents earned points for their team based on quality monitoring of their calls to see if service was offered. Team points were accumulated and both team and individual prizes were awarded. Individuals who achieved a specific target were entered into a draw from which the winners were chosen. Increased service offerings by 1000 percent

Out contests for most improved - with having large items such as bikes as prizes. As well as a contest to drive Sales - with most average sales at the end of a quarter - prize was a paid trip for 2 to Mexico..... was to drive behavior change in the center

Anything team driven, when teams are selected at random.

Carn-e-val electronic billing incentive. We rewarded staff for signing customers up to paperless billing. Each entry went into a draw, and we did multiple draw per day to play carnival style games. Incentive went for 6 weeks, budget was $2500, garnered more than 2000 signups. That drove a reduction in postal costs of roughly $20,000 annually.

We have quarterly sales promotions that focus on specific products.

Financial incentive based on personal performance over a specific threshold.

Least successful contest?Programs that reward single staff in a large group cause the poor and mid performing agents to loose focus as they know they will not get something and the overall effectiveness of the program is lost!

Hard to understand-you meet certain goals & you "compete" with another group & the one with the highest number would win & move on to pay another team-

Month long, only top performers are eligible

Requiring registration on external website, to then take training, which you had to pass with 100%, in order to even be eligible for the add-on contest that month. Saw only 30% participation from an audience that is normally 65-80%.

Chili cook off. People just weren't interested

Having a Contest for a Contest idea - this was a monthly contest to have the agents come up with contest ideas for the center to use.

Money cage for top 3 performers - too little incentive to motivate the masses

Most effective part?Prizes/rewards

Offered performance tracking

Flexibility

Ease of administration, user friendliness & prizes offered

Recognizing effort and talent.

Rewards offered, team work involved in implementing the program

Pay for Performance

Performance tracking, user friendliness and tracking selection of prizes and automated shipping recognition and communication

Performance tracking is the most effective. If agents do not reach the minimum target are not eligible for the big rewards prizes/rewards

Ability for associates to see money left on the table

Our reporting allows us to provide daily/weekly/monthly stats to agents for constant monitoring of their progress

The most effective part of all our incentive programs is the recognition that comes with it.

Personal accountability and uncapped awards.

How could it be better?Have a budget to institute a points based system where agents accumulate points that can be used to purchase merchandise.

Better prizes/rewards

Higher budget increased budget make it more fun & interesting

More employee level input

Automate the full program

Timeliness

Individual based and not dept. based

Not much communication and having more people tasked with active involvement in cheering up and pumping adrenaline to the programs to gain more focus/attention

Improved communications

Tracking System

How could it be better?Make it more fun with immediacy of the pay out. Currently it takes almost a quarter to get the previous quarters results, tabulate them and then figure out who qualifies before they get paid out. The meaning of the reward is lost in the delay

To make it more fair for all of the various teams within our centre. I would really really like to learn of more ideas.

Having a forum to discuss and brainstorm different ideas would be great - we need "Change" some new ideas - as it gets stagnant

Ability to impact all critical behaviors with one incentive

Ability to reward more on the fly rewards without the hassle of getting the extra dollars approved.

They change all the time, so we'd like to be able to change the theme, but keep consistent back end processes.

Easier reporting

Incentive programs best practices(especially with Generation Y & Generation X employees)

Reward behaviors as they happenMicro-goals

Provide fun and excitementRandom intermittent reinforcement

Immediate and separate from regular payroll

Give choice of rewards

Resources:CCPF (ning)

Forums, Events, Blogs, etc.

Snowfly:Resources > White Papers & Research:

Games, Work and Human Motivation

Keeping Good People after you hire them

15 Great Ways to improve your Incentive Program

Paper or plastic? Learn how a grocery bag full of money can be used to improve KPIs in the contact center.

Video educational material

One-on-one demonstration

On-line demonstration

LinkedInContact Center Incentives

Contact Center Performance Forum

World Wide Contact Center Professionals

Questions?

Bob Cowen248-324-1161

rcowen@snowfly.com

Tyler Mitchell307-745-7126

tmitchell@snowfly.com

Kay Jackson609-788-3555

kjackson@responselearning.com