Sales incentives: how do you measure the quality of a sale?

Before blaming a distracted team, look at the bonus they are working towards.

If you reward fast ticket closure, the number can improve while the customer's problem remains. If commission depends only on registering an order, registration can take priority over completing the sale.

Review one incentive: what behaviour should it encourage? How will you know the metric improved without reducing quality? Agree the calculation before work begins. Save this checklist for your next incentive review.

A practical commission example

Imagine a sales team earns commission when an order is registered. Advertising may generate many orders, but some are cancelled or never collected. If marketing counts registered orders and finance counts collected payments, the teams are reporting different outcomes. This is an illustration, not a published client result.

A practical step to try

Agree what qualifies as a sale: registration, confirmation, delivery or payment collection. Set a review date for returns and a policy for delays. Include quality in the assessment rather than rewarding volume alone.

How does this relate to Media Buying?

Cost per registered order can diagnose one funnel stage, but scaling decisions also need cost per completed order. Ask advertising and sales to use the same conversion definition and reporting period.

Review checklist

• Bonuses based on order volume? Review cancellations, complaints and collections too.
• Ticket closed: was the issue resolved? Check the customer's outcome, not closure speed alone.
• Which sale earns commission: registered, delivered or collected? Agree this before calculating payouts.
• Before setting a bonus, ask what it rewards, how it is measured, whether the number could improve while service worsens, and how quality will be checked.

Read next

• Media Buying campaign management
• Validate demand before spending on advertising

To connect marketing with business outcomes, tell SNS about your business and goal. We review the appropriate scope before providing a quotation.

Prepared by the SNS team. Examples are educational, not a promise of results or a published client case.