ANZ to Remove Sales Incentives 

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ANZ Bank New Zealand has announced all its frontline retail sales incentives will be removed from 1 October 2018.

Addressing the concern that sales targets could spur retail staff on to sell unsuitable products to customers, ANZ’s Managing Director Retail and Business Banking, Antonia Watson, says that following the change, their frontline retail staff will be incentivised around good customer service and other aspects like product knowledge.

ANZ Managing Director Retail and Business Banking, Antonia Watson

“The environment is clearly changing and the feedback we’re getting and what we’re seeing in Australia suggests this is the right approach, regardless of how direct or indirect our sales targets were or how minimal,” said Watson.

The bank’s current ‘balanced scorecard’ approach to frontline staff incentives, adopted in 2017, includes about 25 per cent based on sales and the remainder around non-sales targets such as customer feedback, service and product knowledge.

She said this approach has worked well and they have also trialled no sales targets in parts of their call centre this year.

“…what we’re seeing in Australia suggests this is the right approach, regardless of how direct or indirect our sales targets were…”

“We trust our staff to do the right thing by our customers and we know they consider customers’ genuine needs when they talk with them,” she said, but added that removing sales targets entirely will give their customers confidence that they are focussed on doing the right thing by them.

She said it was important all customers who had ANZ New Zealand financial products had them for the right reasons and not because any staff member felt pressured – real or otherwise – to sell them to meet any targets.

“We have a culture in ANZ New Zealand where staff are focussed on the well-being of our customers. If our customers are satisfied and get ahead in their lives because of the products we’ve given them then it’s in our long term interests too,” she said.

“But most importantly, we want our customers to know they can depend on us to do the right thing for them and that this is the absolute focus of our employees.”