Carrie Carder, Yumpingo’s Enterprise Customer Success Manager explores how focusing on the right intentions for your surveys is key to using the results to improve the dining experience. Misguided incentives, like chasing metrics, risk distorting the data and missing valuable insights. By focusing on honest feedback and creating a culture of continuous improvement, restaurants unlock meaningful change that delights guests and drives loyalty.
Avoiding the Cobra Effect
When it comes to spotting opportunities for improvement, enhancing the dining experience, and building loyal customers, guest feedback can be a game-changer.
At Yumpingo, we partner with restaurants to collect quick pulse surveys from guests after they’ve dined or ordered. These short surveys uncover what’s working, what’s not, and how to keep guests coming back for more.
To get the best insights, we encourage frontline teams to share surveys with as many guests as possible. The more feedback collected, the clearer the picture. But while incentives like targets or bonuses can motivate staff to gather feedback, they come with a potential pitfall - the cobra effect. This happens when well-meaning rewards backfire, leading to unexpected problems instead of progress.
The Risk of Perverse Incentives
Perverse incentives (the cobra effect being a well-known one) shows how a good idea can go sideways. For example, if a restaurant focuses too much on metrics like NPS score (a measure of customer satisfaction), the goal can shift from genuinely improving the guest experience to just hitting a target.
This might lead to issues like staff encouraging guests to leave overly positive reviews to boost scores, or avoiding feedback from unhappy guests, skewing the data and missing valuable insights. Over time, this focus on numbers can hinder a culture of meaningful improvement.
Instead, the goal should be to give every guest the opportunity to leave feedback - whether their experience was exceptional or had room for improvement. Honest insights are what drive progress.
Build the Right Culture for Feedback
Incentives can inspire great results when designed thoughtfully. It’s about fostering a culture where feedback is seen as a tool for growth, not just a box to tick. Here’s how to ensure your Yumpingo surveys drive meaningful improvement:
1. Focus on Purpose, Not Just Numbers
Help teams see that feedback is about improving the guest experience, not just hitting targets. When they understand the purpose, the insights will naturally lead to positive change.
2. Promote a Culture of Learning
Create an environment where all feedback - good or bad - is valued. Show teams how their actions directly impact guest satisfaction and overall success.
3. Reward Team Efforts
Shift the focus from individual competition to team achievements. Celebrate shared improvements in guest sentiment and service quality.
4. Connect Feedback to the Bigger Picture
Show teams how guest feedback drives real change, like refining menus, improving service quality, or enhancing the atmosphere. Seeing the impact makes the effort feel worthwhile.
Turning Feedback into Action with Yumpingo
With Yumpingo, restaurants can transform guest feedback into meaningful change. By focusing on the right incentives and fostering a culture of continuous improvement, you can unlock the full potential of guest insights. Yumpingo helps you identify opportunities to delight guests, empower your teams, and grow your business.
The real win isn’t just in collecting data - it’s in using it to create lasting improvements, happier guests, and stronger loyalty. When feedback becomes a tool for growth, everyone benefits - the restaurant, the team, and most importantly, the guests
