{"id":6724,"date":"2019-05-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prodim2020.wpengine.com\/why-cx-leaders-need-to-rethink-using-incentives-for-employees\/"},"modified":"2021-08-27T06:53:41","modified_gmt":"2021-08-27T06:53:41","slug":"why-cx-leaders-need-to-rethink-using-incentives-for-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/blog\/why-cx-leaders-need-to-rethink-using-incentives-for-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"Why CX Leaders Need to Rethink Using Incentives for Employees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From meeting sales quotas to achieving high levels of customer satisfaction, incentivizing employees is commonplace for organizations aiming to increase performance within their workforce. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Customer experience leaders are no different. According to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forrester.com\/report\/Why+Paying+Employees+For+Delivering+Good+CX+Is+A+Bad+Idea\/-\/E-RES137323\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Forrester<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, 85% of companies tie CX to compensation. But the same report also details why linking customer experience performance to financial rewards (and other incentives) actually results in less-than-favorable employee behaviors that can negatively impact employers. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>The Downside of Tying CX to Incentives for Employees <\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tying compensation and incentives to customer experience might provide a short-term bump in employee performance, but it may do more harm than good in the long run. Pearl-Plaza\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/resource\/considering-employee-incentives-for-cx-success-five-ideas-for-better-engagement-that-wont-backfire\/\">\u201cConsidering Employee Incentives for CX Success? Five Ideas for Better Engagement That Won\u2019t Backfire\u201d<\/a> resource highlights the pitfalls associated with CX incentives for employees, including: <\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Bad Employee Behaviors \u2013<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Most companies that offer incentives use a pay-for-performance or \u201cvariable\u201d pay structure, directly tying incentives to individual employee performance. But according to Forrester, this model encourages more troublesome employee behavior, like submitting fraudulent customer reviews and questioning the authenticity of CX data. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Bad Customer Experiences \u2013<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> When employees feel the weight of incentives \u2013 especially relating to their pay \u2013 you run the risk of shifting their focus from top-quality customer service to worrying only about achieving rewards. As a result, employees might start pestering customers to submit positive reviews or high survey scores, leaving customers feeling under pressure and uncomfortable. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>3 Things Brands Can Do Instead of Offering Incentives <\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Delivering exceptional customer experiences shouldn\u2019t be contingent on whether there are incentives on the table. And CX leaders should regularly encourage employees to deliver their best work, without solely offering rewards.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here\u2019s how you can support employees while enabling them to provide memorable experiences that keep customers coming back for more: <\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Share Positive Customer Feedback with Employees.<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Customer feedback typically circulates at a high level, with most employees completely unaware of how customers rate their experiences. When your company receives positive customer comments, share it across the organization. Highlighting great feedback helps to keep employees motivated and excited about their work. <\/span><\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>Identify More Opportunities to Coach Employees.<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Customer feedback presents an excellent opportunity to improve employee performance. Instead of reprimanding employees if they receive less-than-favorable feedback, use the comments as an opportunity to coach future performance. This turns an initially negative scenario into a positive career-growth moment. <\/span><\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>Focus on Impactful Metrics Employees Understand.<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/blog\/how-to-select-customer-experience-metrics-that-put-your-program-on-the-path-to-success\/\"> Tracking metrics<\/a> is the cornerstone of successful customer experience programs. Use data and information that\u2019s meaningful to employees, and that they have a chance at impacting. It\u2019s beneficial for your organization as a whole if employees have a better grasp on how their performance attributes to overall company success. <\/span><\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bottom line: Incentives for CX don\u2019t work. They can encourage bad behaviors and competitiveness in organizations, which may negatively impact your business. Instead of using monetary rewards, CX leaders should focus on supporting employees through coaching, metric sharing and more so they can continue to provide top-tier customer experiences. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To learn more about incentives and CX, check out <a href=\"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/resource\/considering-employee-incentives-for-cx-success-five-ideas-for-better-engagement-that-wont-backfire\/\">\u201cConsidering Employee Incentives for CX Success? Five Ideas for Better Engagement That Won\u2019t Backfire\u201d<\/a> today!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Incentivizing employees is commonplace for organizations aiming to increase performance within their workforce. However, tying compensation and incentives to customer experience might provide a short-term bump in employee performance, but it may do more harm than good in the long run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6725,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"industry":[],"class_list":["post-6724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-best-practices"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6724"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=6724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}