Teller bonuses revamp
MORE than 2000 tellers at the nation’s biggest bank will no longer be financially rewarded for “upselling” products to their customers.
The Commonwealth Bank will today announce it has ceased tying any pay rises and bonuses to “financial measures” for branch staff, with all such links “abolished”.
In a sweeping move that will affect about 1000 branches across Australia, the CBA will declare that bonus pay for frontline staff will now be linked entirely to customer service.
The move comes after the industry-commissioned Sedgwick Review earlier this year, which recommended Australian banks reduce bonuses linked to sales.
Former Australian Public Service Commissioner Stephen Sedgwick, who was hired by the Australian Bankers’ Association to scrutinise pay structures in the industry, said at the time that such incentives promoted “behaviour that is inconsistent with the interests of customers”.
The measures to be announced by the CBA today will be backdated to July 1 – the start of the bank’s current performance review period.
They are aimed at “rewarding branch staff for delivering better customer outcomes, not financial outcomes”, the bank will say. It comes well ahead of the 2020 deadline proposed for banks to implement Sedgwick Review recommendations, with the CBA tipped to deliver the full suite of reforms by next June.
The Commonwealth Bank’s executive general manager for products and strategy, Angus Sullivan, told the Gold Coast Bulletin that customers could be confident when they walked into branches that tellers were not being paid to sell them products.
“This is another step in the journey in how we recognise frontline people and orientate service to customers and their experiences,” Mr Sullivan said.
The changes were an “adjustment”, he said. Staff had been rewarded for improving customer service in the past, but this would now be the sole focus, Mr Sullivan said.
He also said the CBA was hoping to implement fully the Net Promoter Score assessment system for customer satisfaction by the end of the year.
The system was used by Telstra to bolster customer service under former chief executive David Thodey and has been credited with contributing to a significant culture shift at the telecommunications heavyweight.
About 200 branch tellers at CBA subsidiary Bankwest will also be moved onto a similar bonus structure from October 1 – the start of the Bankwest performance review period.