Deliver Top Notch Customer Service by Rewarding Employees

Quality customer service can be achieved by providing some monetary incentives to employees. When customer satisfactions are tied to employee rewards the results can be very impactful. In developing an effective compensation system, the company should:
- Understand what its customers expect
- Understand how customer satisfaction affects organizational success
- Develop and implement a valid customer survey
- Assure employees that the metrics used are valid
- Consider whether additional factors should be involved in rewards
- Balance customer satisfactions with employee productivity and return on investment (ROI).

These types of programs should be balanced with a financial indicator such as profits and/or earnings. Also, a positive customer satisfaction score should not automatically mean a bonus for the individual employee because you need to take into account the financial aspect, too.

As a general rule of thumb, HR experts agree that all employees, including executives and front line service staff, should be included in a customer satisfaction compensation program. With the entire company involved in the customer service, all are actively involved in the same direction and goal.

Once a company ties customer satisfaction with employee compensation, they must be very precise to make sure that changes in measurement are not a result of a statistical fluctuation. These types of programs also require a higher level of sophistication in design and methodology than typical survey programs.

Companies using customer satisfaction compensation programs must be willing to experiment in order to see what produces the best results and environment. For more information, please contact Todd Weyandt at todd@laihr.com.