Satisfaction Guaranteed or . . .
The right incentives can work wonders. That was the experience
of a technical support team that offered callers total
satisfaction or a free ice cream sundae. Their ideas was to offer
a free sundae to anyone who called for support that month, left a
detailed voicemail message explaining the problem, and didn’t
feel the call was returned quickly enough.
(Actually, to avoid a mushy melted mess, what they offered to
give out was a coupon for a sundae, rather than the real
thing.)
The team’s objective was to encourage callers to leave more
complete and relevant information in their voice mail messages.
Detailed, informative explanations would improve the odds that
team members would be able to call back with answers rather than
requests for more information ("Your what is
blank???").
Callers were also asked to indicate a priority, such as
"rush" or "within 2 hours." This would enable
the team to respond to calls in a priority sequence. Contrary to
what you might predict, this request for a priority didn’t lead
callers to claim all problems were top priority. In fact, many
callers said the problem could wait to the end of the day or the
next day for help. As a result, the team knew what was genuinely
high priority and could take timely action.
The notice to customers about the sundae offer stated that the
tech support team would respond to all voice mail messages
quickly. But (and this is key) it didn’t say how quickly. The
team debated the pros and cons of attaching a time to the offer,
such as, "A free sundae if we don’t get back to you within
10 minutes." But they decided that it’s the customer who
must decide whether the turnaround time is good enough; customers
have different ideas about what’s good service, depending on
their needs and priorities.
Was this offer successful in getting callers to leave detailed
messages? Absolutely! Even better, many callers actually hoped
their calls would not be returned quickly so they could collect a
$1 coupon for ice cream! In fact, some callers complained,
"On, no, you called back too quickly . . . I wanted a free
sundae!"
And what about those free sundaes? How many hundreds of
coupons did they end up giving out to callers who felt their
calls weren’t returned fast enough? None at all. Not even
one!
This lighthearted way of encouraging callers to leave detailed
messages significantly improved the quality of their messages.
And the offer of a free sundae gave callers the freedom to
categorize the service level as unacceptable — without appearing
to be a complainer as a result. Just ask for a free sundae
coupon, and the point would be made. Yet, the only complaints the
team heard were that calls were returned too quickly.
Clearly, incentives don’t have to be budget-breakers to be
effective. Tootsie rolls, anyone?
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