I recently fielded a question from someone regarding moving NPS ratings from 8s to 9s.  I asked why that was important.  It was noticeable that the question was posed in terms of numerical scores, rather than moving Passives to Promoters, so I was curious.  Digging a little further I found that the source of the question was a desire among the associates to have their individual interactions move from 8s to 9s.  Peeling back the onion I discovered that they were seeking this because their bonuses were based on their own individual NPS ratings.  Ah, paydirt–in more than one way of meaning.

This is yet another one of those ways that, as I like to say, universal truths are pretty universal:  Just because you predicate your employees’ raises (or any other sort of incentive) on a nominally “CX metric” doesn’t mean it will obviate the nearly iron-clad applicability of Goodhart’s Law.  This little tidbit posits that once a metric becomes a goal it ceases to be a good measure.  The general concept is that, people being people, motivation causes them to aim for a target and sometimes tunnel-vision their quest for the prize, whether that prize be a simple pat-on-the-back, official recognition, or monetary incentives…what I call ‘kibble in the bowl.’
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