What type of motivation works best (e.g., monetary rewards, gift certificates or catalog choices)?
Hansen: It’s critical to tie reward and recognition programs directly to the behavior and performance you want to achieve at the individual, team, program and/or center level. An important element of motivating agents is measuring and monitoring a balance of metrics so the incentive program doesn’t inadvertently drive inappropriate behavior or yield negative results. For example, if you reward based on a single metric such as sales cross-selling in a customer care environment, the agents are encouraged to ignore all other performance metrics, such as quality scores or average handle time, in order to make the sale. The result can be lower customer satisfaction or increased costs. Another critical success factor of an incentive program is to ensure good communication about the program expectations. The agents need to understand what is expected of them, and they need to receive feedback throughout the program on their individual performance as well as the overall project performance. Tr
