SalesForceXP: September/October 2008 Coverstory: A Warehouse Of Motivatiom - How Harrah’s Boosts Group Sales with Non-Cash Incentives

COVERSTORY

SalesForceXP September/October 2008 Cover

Motivating Is Job #1

In his role as acting director of recognition, incentives and communications at Verizon Telecom Marketing, Mark Miller and his team are charged with motivating over 10,000 representatives who handle Verizon Telecom consumer, small business and alternate channel sales.

Verizon partners with the business performance improvement company BI to achieve its sales objectives. To that end, the communications giant uses a blend of non-cash incentive programs, some lasting a week or even less, while others last a full year.

We caught up with Miller to ask him what's new in his world of keeping employees engaged and exceeding expectations.

SFXP: What's new in the world of motivating Verizon sales associates?

Miller: We recently piloted a new product called MyQuest(tm), which is an experience rewards platform with various levels. A participant goes on an experience vacation, the extent of which depends upon which level was earned. You could go to a local NASCAR race, for example, or travel to the most prestigious NASCAR event that's available with pit passes and an opportunity to meet some drivers.
SFXP: Do you frequently change things up with your non-cash rewards?

Miller: Absolutely. If you're running the same program time and time again, you have two forces at play: one, you run the risk of creating an entitlement mentality; two, you have the laws of diminishing returns. I've been a big proponent of driving new ideas - refreshing and redesigning existing programs to make sure we don't get stagnant.

SFXP: It sounds like a real collaboration with BI.

Miller: It's absolutely a partnership. Our clients in the sales channel have asked, "Have you thought about trying this?" Everyone is encouraged to share ideas they have. It goes both directions and sometimes there is an intersection where we bring a concept forward and BI tweaks it and develops it further in order to help us to run with it.

SFXP: Can you get an early read on whether a program is working?

Miller: Definitely. We're constantly measuring the numbers. In fact, when we're trying new concepts we're often able to get a cleaner metric. We can, for example, look at the marketing or training that was already in place and then see that whatever was introduced gave us an immediate 5 percent uptick in sales. We're relentless about trying to perform those types of metrics. The longer-term metrics are more difficult to gauge because the drivers become skewed. You may have marketing campaigns going on during the same time period that new training initiatives were rolled out. Because it's such a competitive environment, everyone seems to be doing everything possible to drive the numbers. If you're looking at performance over a 90-day period, you may have gone through two marketing campaigns in that time. We try to test some of our new ideas and technologies in a much shorter window - a one-day or one-week event - so we know there aren't as many other drivers contaminating the results we're measuring.

SFXP: Proponents of non-cash rewards say cash incentives become entitlements. Don't non-cash incentives become entitlements as well?

Miller: The points have become an expectation to some degree. There is a positive associated with that, however, in that they're saying good things about their recognition and rewards and paying attention. We had some delays in our sales tracking system earlier this year when we converted to a new system and our participants let us know about it when their points didn't show up immediately. That tells me there is engagement and they're excited about and aware of what they have earned.