SalesForceXP: May/June 2008 Coverstory: U.S. Bank Earns Unexpected Dividends With Its Call Center Incentives

FEATURESTORY

SalesForceXP May/June 2008 Cover U.S. Bank Earns Unexpected Dividends With Its Call Center Incentives

by Paul Nolan

Most sales managers initiate an incentive program to increase sales, but Megan Nelson is equally appreciative of meeting two additional objectives that she brought to a GoalQuest program created for about 1,000 call center bankers at U.S. Bank in 2005.

Nelson is Incentive and Recognition Manager for the 24-Hour Banking and Financial Sales division —the people who answer the phones when customers call with questions. Nelson wanted to increase job satisfaction and "deepen the customer relationship" to provide more complete customer service.

"GoalQuest was ideal for targeting that middle group that wasn't pushing [the sales call] forward." - Megan Nelson GoalQuest proved effective at achieving both of these, while also boosting sales of additional banking services. In fact, U.S. Bank has run three GoalQuest programs for these call center employees and each has increased sales significantly.

U.S. Bank previously ran cash incentive campaigns, but "the average banker couldn't really participate," Nelson says. "These programs allowed them to have something that was available."

Nelson reports that some of the biggest increases came from bankers who were mid-level producers before the incentive campaigns kicked in. "GoalQuest was ideal for targeting that middle group that wasn't pushing [the sales call] forward."

And performance remained significantly above the original baseline for three months after the program ended (read the story here).

An unexpected benefit of the GoalQuest programs is increased communication between managers and their call center teams. Because managers earn points for prizes in these programs as well based on their team's performance, they become more interested in coaching. "Bankers were asking for more training," Nelson says.

It's a good indicator that you've found something special when employees stop looking for new jobs and start asking for more training for the jobs they have.