Yes, you should tie compensation to your Voice of Customer (VoC) program (it’s the best way to get your people to actually use it!)
But be strategic about how you do it... and when.
Monetary bonus programs
There are many creative ways to tie VoC to compensation, but one of the most common ways is do it through a bonus program.
Your bonus program could be based on people achieving a particular NPS level or customer satisfaction score.
Another approach is to base bonuses on having a certain number of completed surveys per month/quarter/year or having a low percentage of surveys returned with customer issues.
No matter the goal or threshold, if employees reach that target, they are eligible to receive a bonus; if not, they don’t. It’s simple, it’s straightforward, and it’s motivating.
Setting effective bonuses
There are many factors to consider when establishing an effective bonus program.
For example, are you setting the right goals to encourage the right behavior? Perhaps employees should focus on something other than NPS? And what about your basic survey health? Are you collecting enough customer feedback to define your goals effectively?
B2C companies with thousands or millions of customers, for instance, should make sure that their benchmark goals are based on robust customer feedback. For example, a single hotel can easily serve at least 100 guests a night—that’s 700 a week and more than 2,800 a month. With over 33,000 customers a year, you should always have at least 10% or 3,000-plus responses on hand in a given year to make sure that the bonus plan is based on enough volume to deliver accurate results.
Including (and excluding) the right people
Bonus programs do not need to include every employee either — in fact, bonuses are typically reserved only for the people who are accountable for the customer experience. This could be a general manager of a hotel, as well as the manager who oversees an entire region; it could be the head of the contact center or the head of field services.
These people can choose to set up a bonus system for their team, but they do so as a separate program. There are usually too many employees for the customer experience leader to manage all individual bonuses tied to VoC.
Don't forget non-monetary rewards
Conclusion
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About the Author
Sean McDade, PhD is the author of Listen or Die: 40 Lessons That Turn Customer Feedback Into Gold. He founded PeopleMetrics in 2001 and is the architect of the company’s customer experience management (CEM) software platform. As CEO, he guides the company’s vision and strategy. Sean has over 20 years of experience helping companies measure and improve the customer experience. Earlier in his career, he spent five years at the Gallup Organization, where he was the practice leader of their consulting divisio. His company offers CEM software with advanced machine learning solutions and hands-on analytical support to help companies make sense of their CX data. Sean holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration with a specialization in marketing science from Temple University in Philadelphia. He has published eight articles in peer-reviewed scholarly journals and has taught over 25 marketing classes. Sean was named a 40 under 40 award recipient of the Philadelphia region. He is an active Angel Investor, including investments in Tender Greens, CloudMine and Sidecar.
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