I have trained sales and marketing employees on how to use what is known as the Net Promoter Score. You can Google that term for more details. Basically, a customer score of 9 or 10 is assigned a value of +1 (promoter, which is a positive result). A customer score of 7 or 8 is assigned a score of zero (neutral, neither a promoter or a detractor). A customer score from zero to 6 is assigned a score of -1 (detractor, which is a negative event). Add all of the scores together and divide by the number of scores (i.e., find the average of the scores). A perfect Net Promoter Score is then a +1.0 and a perfectly bad Net Promoter score is -1.0 with the goal, of course, to be as close to perfectly good ( +1 ) as possible.
So, if you feel that someone has done a good job, and you think that a 6 or a 7 is a good score because in your mind it seems to be above average, in this system it doesn't help the person and in fact, it hurts them. Consider two scores of 7 and 10, which turn into Net Promoter Scores of 0 and +1. The sum is +1. the average is 0.5 which is not very good. There are many companies which use Net Promoter Scores. Jack Welsh at GE was the first to really popularize it. I know that Ford dealers, GM dealers, and Bank of America use it because the salespeople have been known to ask for a 9 or 10. I have explained the system to them on occasion. I have encountered it elsewhere as well. A scale which goes from 0 to 5 is the same, but only a 5 counts as a promoter, and it is even harder to get people to rate something as a perfect 5. But 0 to 10 allows people to give a 9 for almost perfect.
If you wonder why the scale is from zero to 10 and not from 1 to 10, a persistent problem with rating systems is people using the scale backward. Is a 1 the top, or the worst? A study was done that showed that there is no culture on earth where zero is the best, so it solves the problem of backward scoring.
I do know of two companies (there are certainly more) where zero is desireable, but that is the special case of industrial safety where the goal is Zero Incidents and Zero Injuries. That case is not covered by the Net Promoter Score.
@Bena wrote:
Regarding giving scores of '10'...
I used to give honest scores on my personal (not mystery shopping) surveys once upon a time. That was until I learnt how those scores affect employees. For some companies, I can't say all because I don't know, any score less than a '10' counts for zero. For example, if 5 catagories are scored and the employee receives five '9's, he might as well have received '1's or '2's from you. Only '10's count.
Since '10' is usually 'exceeds expectations' it would be extremely rare for me to give a '10' honestly as I expect excellent service but I am not about to screw over a great (or even good) employee by giving him an 8 or 9. I therefore give 10's to all if their service got the job done in a pleasant, efficient manner.
Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and South Jersey since 2008