How to hit Fantastic Plus every week

A wise man once said: “You have to spend money to make money.”

And this age-old business adage is not strange amongst the Amazon DSP community. In a survey of over 100 DSP’s, >93% reported that they offer some form of incentives for their drivers.

Delivering over 200 packages a day, climbing up and down apartment buildings, running away from dogs — being an Amazon delivery associate can be challenging. And that’s not to mention all the safety and quality metrics that delivery associates are expected to meet.

So, like any savvy business owner, DSP’s create incentives to align the the pay of their employees (DA’s) with the performance of the business (scorecards). 

While this is a nearly universal practice, not all incentives are created equal.

So – how do some DSP’s structure their incentives to hit Fantastic Plus every week?

(1) Give all employees an equal shot.

A common mistake some DSP’s make is limiting incentive pay to only a pool of drivers. While it can make sense in certain situations to offer certain incentives only to a subset of DA’s - such as tenure-based raises - this usually makes new DA’s feel like they’re left behind. With turnover being as high as it is in the industry, incentives for only a limited portion of a DSP’s team can make it feel like new DA’s are being punished, or have to earn their stripes.

In a similar vein, offering prizes or raffles - where only a handful of drivers win - typically results in worse performance than offering everyone the right to earn an incentive.

Ultimately, it’s best to offer everyone some skin in the game - for example, a recurring weekly incentive for not having any safety violations.

(2) Mix things up.

“Gamification” of work has been a buzz word for the last decade - and for good reason.

Delivering hundreds of packages a day can be daunting, and after a few weeks of the same rhythm, some delivery drivers have voiced feeling frustrated with work or lacking growth opportunities.

Mix it up with different weekly incentives. In particular, if a delivery associate is struggling with a certain metric, incentivize improvement by offering him or her a particular incentive tailored to their performance goals.

(3) Make incentives easy to understand.

Can you explain defects per million opportunities without pulling your hair out?

The metrics that delivery associates are graded on can be very complex, especially for new associates. It is absolutely essential to communicate metrics with drivers in a comprehensible manner. Equally important is clarifying how metric-based incentives work, and how much potential incentive pay a DA is losing out on.

For DSPs, every driver’s performance impacts the team.

One bad incident can double insurance premiums and ruin an entire scorecard.

With that, it’s crucial to keep your team members engaged with incentive-based pay tied to scorecards.

Cents makes it easy to manage incentives.

See why >90% of DA’s love Cents after just two weeks. Sign up for a free trial today.