Are Your Incentives Creating the Customer Experience You Actually Want? Summary:

John DiJulius explains how the behaviors your company rewards, measures, and recognizes become the customer experience your customers actually receive.

Every company has incentives. Some are obvious: bonuses, commissions, contests, scorecards, performance reviews, and promotions. Others are quieter: praise, attention, flexibility, and who gets celebrated in meetings.

But here is the real question: are your incentives creating the customer experience you actually want?

In this episode, Denise Thompson and John DiJulius unpack how incentives drive service behaviors, why companies often reward the wrong things, and how customers ultimately feel whatever the organization values internally. John shares examples from Starbucks, Spirit Airlines, Blockbuster, Charles Schwab, Amazon, John Roberts Spa, Cameron Mitchell Restaurants, and The DiJulius Group's own methodology.

You will learn why speed, efficiency, sales, and profit are not bad metrics, but they become dangerous when they are the only metrics that matter. John also explains how leaders can recognize and reward the right behaviors, including ownership, personalization, follow-through, referrals, retention, service recovery, and Above and Beyond moments.

Key Takeaways

Your incentives reveal what your company truly values. Leaders may say customer experience is a priority, but employees follow what gets measured, rewarded, promoted, and recognized.
Customers feel your internal reward system. They may never see your incentive plan, but they feel it when employees rush, enforce policy over empathy, or focus on transactions over relationships.
Efficiency metrics can create unintended consequences. Metrics like average call time, speed, and volume are not bad, but they become dangerous when they are the only things that matter.
Not all profits are good profits. Hidden fees, late fees, rigid policies, and short-term revenue plays can damage trust and exhaust frontline employees.
Recognition is a powerful teaching tool. Culture is shaped by what leaders notice, celebrate, repeat, and turn into stories.
Great service must be behaviorally defined. "Deliver great service" is too vague. Leaders need to define and reward specific behaviors such as ownership, empathy, personalization, follow-through, teamwork, problem prevention, and service recovery.
The best service incentives align with retention and referrals. Repeat business, referrals, renewals, and earned sales growth are strong indicators that the experience is working.
Stories make culture scalable. Recognition systems like the Milkshake Award and Bear Claw Award help employees understand what Above and Beyond service looks like in real life.

Quotes

"Customers do not experience your mission statement. They experience what your company rewards."

"What gets recognized gets repeated."

"If you reward speed, you get speed. If you reward shortcuts, you get shortcuts."

"Not all profits are good profits."

"Recognition does not always have to be financial. Sometimes culture is built by what gets noticed."

"Great service is too vague unless leaders define the behaviors behind it."

"The customer is the benefactor of what the company rewards internally."

"Your incentives should be aligned with the experience you want delivered."

"Profit is the byproduct of the experience you deliver."

"Employees will do what you tell them is important."

Chapters List

00:00 — Introduction Denise and John open the conversation and preview the topic of incentives that drive service behaviors.

02:51 — Why Incentives Matter to Customer and Employee Experience Denise frames the episode around formal and informal incentives and asks whether companies are rewarding the experience they actually want.

04:52 — What Gets Recognized Gets Repeated John explains why incentives shape employee behavior and how policies communicate what a company values.

07:59 — Incentives Reveal What Companies Truly Believe Denise and John discuss how incentive systems expose a company's real priorities.

09:13 — Starbucks and Customer Service Targets The conversation explores what it signals when a company connects employee rewards to customer service, operations, and performance.

12:24 — The Risk of Unintended Consequences John explains how incentives can unintentionally create the wrong behaviors, using average call time and rigid policy enforcement as examples.

14:01 — Not All Profits Are Good Profits John shares examples from The Employee Experience Revolution, including Blockbuster and Charles Schwab, to show how bad profit policies damage customer trust.

18:01 — How Incentives Show Up in the Customer Experience John explains how retention, referrals, and repeat business reveal whether the experience is actually working.

20:12 — Where Companies Accidentally Reward the Wrong Behaviors John shares the example of gift cards, expiration dates, and the difference between short-term profit and lifetime customer value.

23:42 — Lessons from Low-Cost Business Models Denise and John discuss Spirit Airlines, price competition, and what happens when low cost becomes high friction.

26:31 — Warning Signs Your Incentives Are Creating Bad Behaviors John explains how complaints, employee frustrations, contact centers, and customer sentiment can reveal service breakdowns.

31:45 — What Leaders Should Recognize and Reward John discusses service behaviors, FORD, earned sales growth, referrals, retention, and recognition systems.

38:39 — Mid-Episode CTA Denise explains how The DiJulius Group helps organizations define, teach, measure, and reinforce world-class service.

39:59 — Recognition Without Big Incentive Budgets John shares the Milkshake Award from Cameron Mitchell Restaurants and explains how symbols and storytelling reinforce culture.

43:45 — How to Collect and Share Service Stories John explains how companies can build databases of Above and Beyond stories and use them in meetings, training, and onboarding.

49:40 — Avoiding Forced or Manipulated Recognition Denise and John discuss how to seek customer feedback without creating survey-chasing behavior.

53:23 — Peer-to-Peer Recognition John shares the importance of employees recognizing other employees, including the "caught you doing something right" example.

55:53 — The Simplest Truth About Incentives and Service Culture John closes with the core message: incentives and recognition should be based on the experience you want employees to deliver.

57:26 — Denise's Closing Challenge Denise challenges leaders to examine what their company rewards, praises, promotes, tolerates, and repeats.

Links:

The DiJulius Group Methdology: https://thedijuliusgroup.com/x-commandment-methodology/

Company Service Aptitude Test: https://thedijuliusgroup.com/c-sat-forms/individual-c-sat/

Schedule a Complimentary Call with one of our advisors: tdg.click/claudia

Ask John! Submit your questions for John, to be aired on future episode: tdg.click/ask

Customer Experience Executive Academy: https://thedijuliusgroup.com/project/cx-executive-academy/

Experience Revolution Membership: https://thedijuliusgroup.com/membership/

Books: https://thedijuliusgroup.com/shop/

Contacts: Lindsey@thedijuliusgroup.com , Claudia@thedijuliusgroup.com

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