Just as you can succeed really well in customer orientation, you can also fail. It's a bit funny because we get insights into how different organizations are doing NPSCalculator.com, a website Quicksearch published and visited from all over the world. It is so established that some visitors think it is an official NPS website. It is not uncommon for us to receive very specific questions related to how their company uses NPS or what it thinks about the NPS model in general. Sometimes it leads to slightly longer dialogues.
To manage personal compensation based on NPS
This is surprisingly common. An example from this week was a customer service representative, Antonio, who felt unfairly treated because he had received additional criticism after cases he handled and that he was now unable to reach his personal goal of at least +63 in NPS this month (November 2017). Antonio's bonus was already run and he couldn't get back above +63 so now it didn't matter to him how the rest of the calls went. Should it be like this, he wondered?
This triggered me because it is wrong in so many ways at once.
The most basic thing is that NPS should not be used to control personal compensation because it leads to gaming, i.e. cheating the system.
Not being able to influence
In this case, Antonio's monthly bonus was governed by the answers to the question "Based on the contact you had with customer service, how likely is it that you would recommend [the well-known global company] to a friend or acquaintance?". It is good that the question focuses on the last contact. However, the company had picked up on customers still responding based on things other than what Antonio could help with, so the follow-up question was whether they gave the rating to:
- They had problems with the company's app
- They don't like the company's policies
- How they were handled in customer service
- They were not satisfied with their agreement
- The service did not work
Antonio's bonus was driven solely by the NPS value, regardless of whether the customer had issues with the app or felt locked into a bad deal. It's a bit of a hopeless situation because it becomes a lottery based on which cases you get linked to.
When it starts to cheat
I explained that that way of governing will lead to cheating. Antonio could also confirm that.
- He said that he had colleagues who sometimes disconnected or "accidentally dropped" calls. It happened to be the really angry customers.
- The survey is based on the customer's last contact, so by connecting really dissatisfied customers to second-line support, he could send Svarte Petter to a colleague.
- You can explain to the customer that they need to answer 9 or 10 on the NPS scale, otherwise the customer service representative will be penalized.
- Antonio speaks both English and Spanish and takes calls from North America and South America.
South Americans tend to give better ratings than North Americans. By picking calls from the Spanish-speaking call queue, he was able to increase the chances of a better NPS value.
I willingly admit that I had to tip him off about this cheat.
There are many other ways to cheat. Some he didn't have access to. For example, you can change or delete the contact details of an unsatisfied customer so that they do not receive a survey. It is perhaps easier to do if, for example, you work as a salesperson with access to CRM or with the booking system in a hotel reception. Cheating works just as well in sales as in hotels and restaurants. The wealth of invention is great and the goal simple.
Outsourced customer service
It happens that companies that purchase customer service from call centers require that NPS be measured and that a certain goal be met. In that case, the call center has an incentive to cheat with the NPS value, and you therefore not only need to demand how high the NPS value must be, but also that it must not be used in any incentive model. A more appropriate goal to set for the customer service employee is for them to reach a certain response rate.
The consequence of cheating
It is right to want to deliver the best customer experience, and one way to make sure of this is to follow up with customer service. NPS is a well-known and proven method for working with customer experiences that several of the largest companies in the world use with success, but if the NPS method is implemented incorrectly, it can have the opposite effect from what was intended.
- The company provides a worse customer experience, especially if you as a customer are judged to be dissatisfied and disconnected.
- The company gets a false picture of how their customer service impacts and performs in driving their reputation.
- Powerless employees who are rewarded monetarily if they cheat.
The fraud contributes to a distorted image of NPS and companies miss out on valuable insights to strengthen the relationship with and understand their customers. By bringing in a professional NPS consultant, you can get help implementing the method so that it is used as it should be – to develop the business and increase the company's profit.
Want to learn more about how you can work with successful NPS implementations? Contact us via the form below or by phone for more information.
