Telstra pays cash for better customer service Telstra is offering resellers cash bonuses if they improve customer service. Telstra is asking thousands of resellers and branded retail shops to subscribe to tough new customer service standards, and is offering cash bonuses to stores that reach performance hurdles. The country's largest telecommunications carrier is rolling out the Net Promoter Score [NPS], a closely watched industry figure that measures customers' willingness to advocate for a brand. The new standards will apply to more than 2000 resellers and 350 Telstra-branded shops across the country. Telstra will pay its retailers not only sales commissions, but also for their customer service performance. NPS measures the ratio of advocates to detractors on a scale of one to 10. Telstra has been asking shops to score eight or above to be in positive territory. "Sales incentives are used by many companies to remunerate and steer their sales and service channels to what's important," a Telstra spokesperson said. Changing the way customers talk about Telstra is what's most important to us. While sales incentives are effective, alone they are not enough to make lasting change. That's why we use a range of metrics - including the Net Promoter Score - to differentiate on service and become a leader in customer advocacy. Telstra chief executive David Thodey has repeatedly said improving customer satisfaction is a core company strategy and he that he wanted to create a "culture of advocacy." We've had a company-wide roll out of the Net Promoter System. Now NPS is both a system but also a cultural change and this has been one of the largest change programs that we've really ever undertaken in the country," he told analysts after the release of the company's half yearly results recently. The telco has conducted over five million customer surveys so far this year and is devising new sales strategy based on the data. A Telstra franchise told BusinessDay Mr Thodey was "very serious" about customer services. The franchinsee said he could get paid for getting a good customer service score without necessarily having to sell a product or sign the customer up to a Telstra contract. Telstra is not alone in the rush to improve customer services as mobile industry enters a period of stagnation after years of breakneck growth. Deutsche Bank estimates mobile penetration has reached 135 per cent in Australia. The bosses of Optus and Vodafone - country's second and third largest carriers - have also named customer service as top priorities. Vodafone chief Bill Morrow went as far as revealing the company's own closely guarded NPS recently. Mr Morrow said long-term customers who signed up before the carrier's well-publicised network failures problem rated the company at negative 11. But customers who signed up during or after the crisis gave Vodafone a worse score of negative 27. The industry average in Australia is between negative one and two. Mr Morrow recently said signs of "green shoots" were appearing in Vodafone's customer service, with customers who signed up in 2012 giving the company a score of positive four.