The £10 That Gamed a National Service Award
John Sansbury
1 min read
A major UK utility once won a Chartermark for its customer commitment, including a promise to pay £10 to any consumer for a missed appointment.
Engineers running late worked out the loophole. They would knock on the door of the next appointment, apologise, rearrange, and hand the householder £10 out of their own pocket.
Appointment target met. End-of-week bonus secured. £10 recovered many times over. Customer left without the visit they were promised.
Nobody lied. The system simply rewarded the wrong thing.
This story from The Journey to Service Excellence is why we tell every class: measures create behaviour. If a service level can be gamed, sooner or later it will be, and the gap always lands on the customer.
Where in your organisation is a well-intentioned target quietly producing the wrong behaviour?
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