On The Spot Rewards News
On-the-Spot Rewards Shops are Rewarding
Sep 16, 2011 by Confero Inc.
Confero, Inc. would like to send a big thank you out to all of the mystery shoppers who helped us complete thousands of on-the-spot rewards shops this summer! Mystery shoppers conducted these shops at amusement parks, movie theaters, casual dining restaurants, fast-food restaurants, and airports.
We got a lot of great feedback from our mystery shoppers about conducting this type of mystery shop. If you have had reservations about trying a prize reveal shop, see what other mystery shoppers have said:
“It felt great to be able to award the successful cashier with the gift card. The cashier told me that he had been working for this company for sixteen years and it was nice to know he is appreciated.” – Kelly M., California
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Are Employees Gaming Your Incentive Program?
Nov 29, 2011 by Confero Inc.
People tend to do those things for which they are rewarded. To encourage employees to provide the customer service promised to our customers, employee incentive and recognition programs are put into place to reward employees who engage in desired behaviors or who achieve specific outcomes.
Desired behaviors can be measured by mystery shopping programs, manager reports, audits, customer feedback measures and performance reviews. Specific outcomes can be measured by sales amounts, referral numbers and the like.
No incentive program is perfect and, over time, sometimes employees figure out a way around the system to “earn” the incentive. In other words, sometimes employees “game the system”.
Here are some common games we see. We hope they help you in planning to avoid them.
The Game: Trick the Technology
If an organization uses technology alone to measure key service metrics and reward performance with incentives, the system is usually an easy target for gaming the system.
The modify the order trick. A mystery shopper overheard a training conversation at the first of two drive through windows at a quick service restaurant. When the mystery shopper attempted to hand the employee payment, the mystery shopper heard the trainer saying “No, never just accept the payment. Always be sure to click on Modify Order then click Ok before you accept the customer’s payment. This will restart the timer on our transactions so our service times will look good.”
The ring up single items as multiples trick. At a grocery store checkout, the cashier entered a fresh bagel purchase as
