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4 Key Steps To Create A Bonus Program For Your Call Center

4 Key Steps To Create A Bonus Program For Your Call Center

Bonuses are a great strategy for call centers to drive motivation and increase performance. The call center work can sometimes turn monotonous and frustrating leading to high turn-over rates, agent burnout and

low-performance metrics. Which is why it's paramount to create effective bonus schemes and incentive programs that motivate the agents, increase performance and enforce positive attitudes in the call center. But when there are not properly planned, they can backfire, creating negative competition, demotivation, discomfort or affect negatively the service levels and profit of the company.

For that reason, here we give you 4 steps you need to consider when implementing a bonus program.

 1.-Design

Before you begin designing what you think will work you need to ask yourself,

 “What am I trying to accomplish?” The answer to this question will give you direction on properly planning the correct bonus scheme or incentive program.

Once you’ve established your objectives, they will need to be aligned with the outcome that will enable the best result for your business culture and vision.

Now that you have a concise understanding of the objectives you can determine any variables you may need to consider before rewarding any bonus or incentive, make sure all of them are measurable. For example, active days in the company for retention, attendance, number of leads, QA scores, or customer satisfaction survey scores. How will you measure your objectives?

After tracking or measuring any variable you will need to consider how you will compensate, will it be monetary, something tangible or a convenience perk.

 Will it be an individual or group bonus? You need to consider if the achievement was possible with the support of other members because they should also be compensated. And, you need to know the preferences of your employees, what will be valuable for them? Also consider the difficulty of reaching the goal, if the objective is substantial or hard, you can give a bigger bonus or an expensive prize, but if it’s easily reached and many employees will have it, be careful with not giving too much, that could unbalance your profit.

 2.-Communicate

This step relies on effective and prompt communication to all who are eligible for the bonus,  it’s imperative to avoid doubts and confusions that can result in discomfort and complains, it should be all the opposite, it should generate excitement and motivation, that is what you want to achieve.

You will need to respond to the “W” questions: what, why, who and when. What is the bonus about and what will it be, why is this bonus given, who is eligible for the bonus and when it’ll be given? Again, make sure this is clear for everyone and make sure there is transparency in the process.

 3.-Measure

After the communication is clear and set, you need to start measuring the variables. Make sure you will get the information on time, think of who will provide the information to evaluate what you need, and what systems are needed as well. Make sure the process is fast, precise and simple. Take advantage of the systems you have in place or even consider getting a new one that can simplify the processes, you don’t want to spend a lot of time on this step. And remember, there’s no room for mistakes and incorrect evaluations because this will affect the validity of the bonus. And, is important that the agents get constantly informed on their performance, so they can know where they stand and take actions to reach the desired goal, but also, in order to have transparency.

 4.-Reward

For those who were eligible for the incentive or bonus, you need to give the reward on a timely manner, for example, if you promised you were going to give it every 15th of the month, it has to be given that day. Now, what are you going to give? it must be valuable for the employee, there are many things you can give. Here are some examples:

  • Money based: Cash, commissions, gift cards and discounts.
  • Material gifts: free food or coffee, a nice travel mug, assorted gifts for a raffle like subscriptions for premium apps, a grill kit, certificates for a nice dinner, tablets, etc.
  • Convenience perks: paid time off to arrive late or leave early, special parking spot, special super comfortable chair, anything that could make the daily routine easier or more comfortable.

 Now, you know where to start. Follow these steps, answer all the questions in this article and do a proper research before implementing the incentive. We recommend working with your team and all involved departments and put everything on paper (or a digital document).

 At CCSI we want you to reach the best performance and always keep your agents motivated. Our model allows you to mirror your U.S. operation including systems, KPIs, and of course incentives. But our agents are so important for us that we designate a budget for bonuses and incentives to drive performance and motivation. Contact us to learn more about our business model.