Apparently some companies don't understand how business works best (i.e., make a product that people want, price it where they can afford it and feel they are getting a fair price, and then if necessary adjust pricing to attract more customers, or to get customers to stay with your service rather than switching to a competitor). For example, how about Sprint. Check out the news here: Sprint pay incentives aim to slow cancellations
So, now the Sprint employees are going to be under increased pressure to retain customers and not let customers cancel their service. Hmmm, where I have heard horror stories about that sort of business practice, in the not so distant past. Oh, yeah. I remember (not that I could forget). It was our good friends at AOL(.com). AOL put so much pressure on their employees to keep customers from leaving that it was virtually impossible for customers to cancel their service and stop getting charged for it. With AOL it got so bad that legislation and interference by legislators was threatened, and consumer advocates went berzerk smacking AOL around for their poor customer service approach.
Recently I experienced a similar situation with Vonage. They had charged me for service earlier than they should have, ripping me off for at least a month of service, and then insisting that they couldn't refund my payment for a year of service though I was calling to cancel before that year should even have started. They (Vonage) were adamant that they couldn't refund my money and were darned persistent in trying to keep me as a customer despite my protestations.
None of these companies really seem to understand that the problem isn't that their employees aren't getting enough pressure to keep customers. Customers don't care what incentives the employees of these businesses get or don't get. Customers care what the products cost, and they care that they get prompt and courteous service when they need assistance, and finally they care that products work as advertised.
If these companies want to spend more money to keep customers from leaving, they need to beef up their customer service departments, they need to offer the customers more of the incentives, and oh, yeah, perhaps lower their prices or offer more for less than their competition does.
In the case of Sprint, this seems like it would only end badly. The Sprint employees will care more about saving their own incentives and getting their bonuses than actually taking care of the customers and making them happy. Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps Sprint will empower the employees to offer up more incentives and compensation to customers, but I really doubt that is the case. After all, offering the customer more for less will just send a message to the customer that they've been over paying all along. 
