The Snowfly Blog: Incentive Tips and Advice for Today's Workforce

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noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 10:49:47 PST

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Snowfly Blog has Moved

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 10:44:57 PST

Snowfly's blog has been moved to http://www.snowfly.com/blog

Snowfly Founder Brooks Mitchell: Article about Wellness Incentives

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Tue, 11 May 2010 10:28:53 PDT

Dr. Mitchell's article "Inspiring Motivation Through Workplace Wellness discusses the benefits of using employee incentives to motivate employees to live a healthier lifestyle. You can learn more about utilizing Snowfly to faciliate employee wellness incentive programs HERE

Time Magazine Cover Story Proves Snowfly is Right!

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 10:02:23 PDT

This months TIME Magazine cover story titled "Should Kids Be Bribed to Do Well in School" pretty much literally supports what Snowfly has has always preached to our clients: “Reward the Homework, not the Final Grade” i.e. In any environment, the most effective way to motivate people is to consistenly reinforce small measurable behaviors.

Snowfly Success Story: Readers Digest

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 08:24:58 PDT

In April of 2008 The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc., a global media and direct marketing company, implemented a Snowfly-facilitated incentive program and quickly saw a dramatic increase in Agent Revenue per Minute. CLICK HERE TO VIEW/READ THE COMPLETE SUCCESS STORY.

CAUTION: Superstars Can Hurt Your Contact Center’s Incentive Efforts

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 08:13:03 PDT

Written by Bob Cowen: Snowfly Incentives Representative

Superstars: they’re great; you wish you had more. Their KPI’s are at the top of the charts. You’d clone them if you could. Superstars make you look good to your boss. You fear losing any one of them. They almost always “max out” on your incentive programs. Despite this good news, a poorly designed incentive program will create a very negative effect on your non-superstars that will cost you dearly.

Superstars, Tiger Woods and contact centers.

A very interesting article appeared in The Wall Street Journal on April 3, 2010 titled “The Superstar Effect” written by Jonah Lehrer. The sub-title was “From the playing field to the boardroom, when one competitor is clearly the best, the others don't step up their game—they give up. As Tiger Woods returns to golf, Jonah Lehrer looks at the nature of competition.” The article closely examines the research conducted by Professor Jennifer Brown of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University (these articles can be easily found on the internet). Her research showed that when Tiger Woods is competing, every other golfer took an average of 0.8 more strokes for the tournament. Professor Brown calls this “the superstar effect.” An avid golfer calls it “choking,” and a non-superstar contact center agent operating under a poorly designed incentive program calls this the “why bother to compete for the incentives because the same people always win” effect. Yes, seeing a strong competitor has a negative effect if your chances of winning are slim and the number of prizes is limited. Failure becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Professor Brown concludes “Just look at golf: Not only does the tournament winner get a disproportionate amount of prize money, but he or she also gets all the glory.” Please don’t interpret this to mean that I’m against competition; competition is a great motivational tool. It must, however be used properly and positively.

One third of incentive programs produce negative results

No, I’m not kidding and one of the many reasons is the de-motivating effects of poorly designed incentive programs. In spite of all of the efforts (committee meetings, budgeting, prize selecting, announcing, promoting, monitoring, rewarding, etc.), only one third produce positive results. The remaining one third of incentive programs are not even measured. The good news is that a well designed incentive program can easily produce an improvement in KPI’s of 20% to 40% very quickly and without breaking the bank.

How to prevent self-fulfilling failure.

There are five basic principles behind a successful and well designed incentive program:

Reward small behaviors as the happen, frequently
Reward anyone meeting a goal, not just the very top performers
Make winning fun and exciting
Pay rewards immediately
Provide choice of rewards

Self-fulfilling failure is a result of a violation of both elements of the first principle. When the non-superstar agents see an incentive program with little chance for their success, they will not try to compete. Sure, they may say that they’re competing just as the other golfers claim to be on their “A game” but the reality of the situation is that the lack of effort is often subconsciously controlled rather than overtly. Golf tournaments can have only one winner but that’s not the case with contact centers incentive programs. Rewarding small behaviors is often called “rewarding the daily homework” and translates to breaking-down large activities into their smallest components and rewarding them as they occur. Don’t wait until the end of the incentive program or even the end of the week or end of the day to reward activities that contribute to your bottom line. This also means having a budget that allows for rewarding everyone who meets your goals. Oh, and yes, your superstars will also be well rewarded. In their case, I quote golfer Gary Player who (attributed originally to Samuel Goldwyn) said “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” The great news is that this quotation can apply to all agents with a well designed incentive program.

Agent incentives: cash or merchandise?

noreply@blogger.com (Bob) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:42:42 PDT

This is undoubtedly one of the most frequently asked questions by contact center management. I’d be rich if I had a dime for every time I’ve heard it. This article will not provide the definitive answer but will relate some of my observations and suggestions so you may answer the question yourself.

Incentives should be used to drive and maintain behaviors that maximize profitability. Whether buying a birthday gift for a friend or incentives for your employees, deciding what will please someone else is almost always a challenge. Mind reading is not an exact science.

One of the biggest perceived negatives of offering cash or equivalent (such as debit or gift cards) is that it’s “impersonal” and the giver is lazy and uncaring. However, there is no question about the true monetary value of the reward as can be the case with merchandise. Gift cards tie the recipient to a specific store but cash or debit cards allow complete freedom of choice.

Many incentive companies claim that merchandise has a greater impact on behaviors and their catalogs and gift cards solve the challenge of “what to give” by allowing the recipient to select what they want. Some providers offer their services at no charge provided the customer uses their catalog.

Catalog merchandise is usually marked-up; I’ve seen some as high as 50% above “street” prices. The lowest debit card I’ve seen has 3 ½% to 4% mark-up. The lower the mark-up, the better the return for your incentive dollar.

For many years I’ve used a charge card that earns “points” that can be used to “buy” catalog merchandise and gift cards. As a general rule, each dollar spend with the card earns a point and a point is worth one cent. The catalog offers a wide selection: airlines, hotels, car rentals, resorts, retail, restaurant, electronics, entertainment, fashion, sports and more. Every year I receive a beautiful new catalog and I can browse and redeem points on-line as well. Until very recently, I had not tried to redeem points (saving for retirement). After receiving a new catalog, I compare the catalog prices with prices that I find on-line. These annual comparisons have caused an uneasy feeling in my stomach as I’ve easily found much lower prices. I have accumulated more than 350,000 points and recently tried to redeem some. In addition to high catalog prices, I encountered many restrictions that further decreased their value. I solved this problem by buying gift cards with my points, selling them on eBay, transferring the PayPal monies to my bank account and closing my account with the charge card company. Now I am able to buy what I want and not feel ripped-off.

An agent incentive program is most effective if employee focus is on achieving your goals, not how fair or unfair the program is.

Call Center New Years Resolutions: A Two-Sided Coin

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 14:01:19 PST

An article written by Snowfly Founder, Dr. Brooks Mitchell for The Customer Service Management Community Customer Management IQ - IQPC.

Four Principles Behind a Successful Incentive Program

noreply@blogger.com (Bob) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 15:55:13 PDT

An incentive program must produce a positive return on investment, otherwise it’s not worthwhile. My benchmark is an improvement of at least 20% in KPI’s. The program cost should be around two hours worth of labor cost per employee per month. For example, if paying $12 per hour, plan to spend $18 to $30 per month on incentives and program administration. This results in an excellent ROI.

I’ve observed four tenets beneath the most successful programs.

Reward the daily homework and the final grade takes care of itself. Take large activities and break them into their smallest components and reward them as they occur. If improved attendance is a goal, provide a daily reward in addition to a “five days in a row” award. This will achieve significantly greater overall improvement than weekly, monthly or quarterly attendance rewards. Technologically this may be challenging however “continuous positive reinforcement” is one of the best and most cost efficient methods of behavior shaping
Make your office a fun place. Whether playing spin-the-wheel, drawing a ticket from a bowl or other simple and quick games, it’s valuable to inject even more excitement into receiving a reward. All rewards must be positive; the variable is the amount of the prize. The principal of “random intermittent reinforcement” is another very strong element found in successful incentive programs.
Give the reward as soon as possible after the desired event. If an improved conversion or up selling rate is a goal, provide the reward for the activity as soon as possible. Remember that any activity that is rewarded will be repeated.
Choice of the reward is crucial. Having rewards that have no perceived value will not elicit desired behaviors. Allowing the recipient to determine the reward also solves the clairvoyance problem of not knowing what to give. Rather than forcing the employee to select overpriced merchandise or gift cards from specific stores, a Visa or MasterCard debit card allows choice.

One of the hallmarks of failed incentive programs is that they are perceived as “short term” solutions. Incentive programs must be “on going” or KPI’s revert to their prior states. Unfortunately positive behaviors lack momentum to continue far beyond the cut-off point of an incentive program.

Holiday Incentive Cartoon-2009

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:27:06 PST

Beware... the Holiday Turkey

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 11:18:04 PST

A Cautionary Tale for Call Center Holiday Recognition.

Posted on Call Center & Customer Service Management Community Customer Management IQ - IQP

Contact Center Incentive Survey: The Results

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:24:14 PST

Title: Contact Center Incentive Survey: The Results
Presenter:Rober Cowen - Snowfly Board Member
Originally Recorded: Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Working in conjunction with Kay Jackson of Response Learning and The Contact Center Performance Forum, Snowfly recently created and made available a survey to the contact center industry. The purpose of this survey was to to gain insight into how contact centers are approaching the topic of incentives. An overview of the survey results are presented in this archived webinar event.

Stop Obsessing About the Job Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty—Focus on Performance

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 11:19:01 PST

Written by Snowfly Founder and CEO Brooks Mitchell for Thje Call Center & Customer Service Management Community | Customer Management IQ - IQPC

Best Practices in Call Center Recruitment: Stop Trying to Understand Why Call Center Representatives Are Quitting

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 11:19:38 PST

Witten by Snowfly Founder and CEO Dr. Brooks Mitchell as part of his monthly "Unorthodox Wisdom for the Uncommon Call Center" column for the Call Center & Customer Service Management Community | Customer Management IQ - IQPC

Winners announced in ATA/CCNG Best Contact Center Incentive Contest

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:35:08 PDT

Columbus, Ohio: Local chapters of ATA & CCNG conducted a joint meeting to determine the best contact center incentive programs. Winners were announced in each of the six categories: Quality – Ameridial; Cross-sell - AraCon Systems; Selling on a Customer Service Call – Highlights for Children; Inbound Sales – Accor North America; Collections – Crestwood Management; Outbound Telemarketing – InfoCision.

Some of the most notable contests include:

Accor North America’s on-going “Power Hour” program occurs randomly (but mainly during peak inbound call times). It provides immediate recognition to agents with award tickets for each hotel reservation. The tickets are given with great fanfare by members of management and allow agents a spin on their “wheel of chance” where every spin wins a prize. The program has increased sales, reduced absenteeism and improved schedule adherence.
InfoCision’s ̶Crack the Code” month long, end of year contest awards tickets for working extra hours. The number of tickets is doubled for each successive week of extra work (the multiplier). Tickets allow communicators (agents) to “buy” a prize box (hung throughout the contact center) with unknown contents. The content of your prize box is revealed weekly in a company wide video conference call attended only by those who were able to buy boxes. Those not meeting quality standards are not permitted to work extra hours (or earn tickets). Prizes consisted of PTO, gift certificates, iPods, casual day & other electronics plus five significantly large and valuable grand prizes. The contest allowed InfoCision to meet (and exceed) customer hours requirements
Ameridial’s Sale-a-thon Contest ran for five weeks with identical prizes for all offices. Awards for sales and call quality were given hourly and daily using “funny money” that was later used to bid on prizes at auction. Funny money recipients could combine funds into teams to pool their funds for auctions. Conversion rates and revenue-per-hour were rewarded along with quality scores. A noticeable secondary affect was improved attendance.
Highlights for Children’s “Go for No” contest rewards agents for remembering to ask even the difficult questions where the customer is likely to say “no” (in addition to rewarding for positive activities). Individual “No’s” are placed on a bingo card that when filled, can be redeemed for prizes. By asking the tough questions, Go for No has generated a lot more YES’s, turned customer service into a significant revenue generator and increased the comfort level when hearing the word “no.”
Incept Corporation’s “LifeSaver” incentive program is an on-going cumulative award program for agents who generate blood donation appointments that are kept. Points are used to promote the agent to a higher “LifeSaver” rank or title. The title is used on name tags and office signage. LifeSaver rank differentiates Incept’s agents from jobs in other local contact centers and makes the reward much more personal. Different values of points are awarded for different types of donors (new recruitment, lapsed, long-lapsed, etc.)

The meeting provided an excellent opportunity to exchange ideas and share best practices. A few common traits: reward the daily homework, reward activities as soon as completed, use random intermittent reinforcement (chance) to generate excitement, cash (choice of reward) is often the most desired award. The basic activities are the easiest to measure and reward, call quality must be maintained and is often a “qualifier.”

Winners from left to right: Terri Peterman – Ameridial, Jake Fegan - AraCon Systems, Jeff Cundiff – Highlights for Children; Aquilla Portis – Accor North America; Chris Kimes – Crestwood Management; Matt Feltrup– InfoCision.

The contest was organized and facilitated by Jim Beuoy of Ameridial, Vernon Smith of CCNG (Parallax Technologies), John Stanovcak the Ohio Valley ATA chapter president (WorldShoring). The meeting was very helpful to those who attended. ATA & CCNG are the ideal associations to coordinate meetings of this type. The judges were Bob Cooke of Cicero; Laurie Alm and Stacey Jones of Motivated Incentives; Sam Maniar, Ph.D. of PRADCO and Robert Cowen of Snowfly. The judges have a combined total of more than 80 years in the contact center industry. The sponsors were DigiVoice, NobleBiz and Sound Communications. Copies of the presentations should be available for download from the CCNG and ATA web sites in the future. From the Contact Center Incentives group at LinkedIn.

About Contact Center Incentives: The group was founded by Robert Cowen, an experienced contact center subject matter expert in the field of agent incentives and motivation. For more information, contact Robert Cowen at 248-324-1161 or email rcowen@snowfly.com.

Archived Webinar Event: Quality, Coaching, and Incentives – Benchmark Results for the Contact Center

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:10:09 PDT

Title: Quality, Coaching, and Incentives – Benchmark Results for the Contact Center
Presenter: Kay Jackson, President and co-founder of Response Design
Originally Recorded: Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Based on her vast experience, expertise, and the results of a recent survey, Kay provides valuable insight on how customer contact professionals utilize quality, coaching, and incentives to enhance the performance of their contact centers.

Watch this recorded webinar and learn:

How other organizations measure and report quality
What agent KPIs they have in place
What customer channels they monitor for quality
The number of calls and emails they monitor
Who provides feedback and coaching to agents, how often and how much time they invest
The return on investment (ROI) story for quality monitoring, training, and incentives
Types of and how to budgeting for incentives
What the best contact center investments are
How to decrease costs while improving performance

CLICK HERE TO WATCH

Snowfly Featured in Human Resource Executive Magazine

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:09:26 PDT

Snowfly and our innovative incentive and recognition solution is the featured topic of an article titled "Game On" in The September 2009 issue of Human Resource Executive Magazine.

CLICK HERE TO READ ARTICLE

The case for pay for performance -- Federal Computer Week

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:08:54 PDT

This is a very interesting article making a case for monetary based incentives. Note the three types of "pay for performance" programs discussed:

Incentives for individuals based on objective performance measures
Merit pay, i..e. incentives based on more subjective evaluations by an employees boss
Group-based incentives

I point this out because Snowfly-Facilitated Incentive Programs are set up to support any or all three of these program types.

READ ARTICLE HERE

"Contact Center Incentives" group formed at LinkedIn

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:01:46 PDT

NEW GROUP FORMED TO SIMPLIFY FINDING ANSWERS TO AGENT MOTIVATION QUESTIONS:

Laramie, WY – September 8, 2009. A good contact center agent incentive program is the best way to take KPI’s, agent analytics and scorecards and turn the data into action. However, with over 320 LinkedIn groups with the words “contact center” or “incentives” in their names, it’s not surprising that finding the best group to ask questions, find answers and sharing best practices about agent productivity can be an overwhelming and time consuming challenge.

Questions about agent motivation, incentives, turnover (especially early-stage), attendance, adherence, call quality, upselling, increasing collections and improving KPI’s are scattered among numerous LinkedIn groups. In many cases the same question is posted on many different groups thus preventing other interested parties from seeing or contributing the best answer because they’re following the wrong group.

To provide a central location to post and monitor questions, share best practices and exchange ideas there is now a dedicated LinkedIn group to address the specific needs of contact centers with questions about agent incentives, motivation and improving KPI’s. The group is called “Contact Center Incentives” and was launched in early September. The group is already in the top half of Contact Center groups and in the top third of Incentive group listings by number of members.

About Contact Center Incentives: The group was founded by Robert Cowen, an experienced contact center subject matter expert in the field of agent incentives and motivation. For more information or to schedule an interview, contact Robert Cowen at 248-324-1161 or email rcowen@snowfly.com

Six Sigma May be Dangerous to Your Call Center

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 07:55:59 PDT

Article written by Snowfly Founder and CEO Brooks Mitchell, PhD for th Call Center & Customer Service Management Community | Customer Management IQ - IQPC

PDF Slides from Webinar: Primal Management: Unraveling the Secrets of Human Nature to Drive High Performance.

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 09:15:40 PDT

If you missed the Snowfly webinar event: "Primal Management: Unraveling the Secrets of Human Nature to Drive High Performance" that took place on Thursday, August 6, 2009 you can download a PDF version of the PowerPoint Slides that featured presenter, Paul Herr used HERE

You Made a Contract With Your Call Center Representatives, So Keep It!

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 08:15:56 PDT

Snowfly Founder and CEO Dr. Brooks Michell's monthly column for Customer Management IQ

Microsoft Press : Portfolio Selection and Game Theory in Defect Prevention

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 09:02:58 PDT

Microsoft Press : Portfolio Selection and Game Theory in Defect Prevention

Snowfly is discussed in this article about how Microsoft used Game Theory to prevent software defects.

Ask the Professor # 5

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:36:26 PDT

Incentive and Recognition Strategies Based on Facts and Research

Question for the Professor: What do employees appreciate more, a "free" gift from their employer or a gift that they knowingly earned?

Dr. Mitchell's Answer: A gift that they knowingly earned?

A study at Emory University conducted by Gregory Berns, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, clearly showed that the human brain is more stimulated when a person earns something as opposed to having something given to him/her. Dr. Berns states: "When you have to do things for your reward, it is clearly more important to the brain." As an example, he goes on to say, "There is substantial evidence that people who win the lottery are not happier a year later."

A similar conclusion was reached by a recent Snowfly survey of 500 users. People responded to this open-ended question: “What do you like about the Snowfly reward system?” There were 361 respondents who recorded something to the effect, “I like it when I earn a reward.” This is opposed to only 25 respondents who made comments such as “I like getting prizes."

As Dr. Berns says, “This (earning things) is a natural process of the human brain….. I don’t think it (the human brain) evolved to what it is today because people sat on a couch and had things fall into their laps.”

Dr. Brooks Mitchell is a professor of management at The University of Wyoming. He has written and published extensively in the field of human motivation in the workplace.

Incentive Cartoon

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Mitchell) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:30:30 PDT

Found this one at www,funnytimes.com. Maybe negative reinforcement in the workplace does work?