Quality - consistency in performance

[wenmk]

How can I get staff to be consistent in their quality performance. My call center has several tenured reps who seem to perform well for 2 or 3 months and then have 1 or 2 bad months. Lack of consistency are generally in the areas of adjusting fees correctily (causing a 2nd customer call, to fundamentals, such as greeting the customer and closing the call properly).

My supervisors understand the importance of how quality affects 1st call resolution and improves the bottom line. Any ideas on how we can get staff to buy in, short of disciplinary action.

Thanks in advance for any ideas!

[Dheed]

Interesting issue.

[Dheed]

Interesting issue. There is one thing I have learned as a rep and a supervisor in my 7 years of call center experience. It is impossible to handle every single call perfectly. This leads to the following questions and suggestions:

How many times do you monitor per month? Is is spaced out throughout the month (as opposed to one day per person)? You should see some consistency (be it good or bad) if you monitor enough.

Also, how busy is your center? If it is an enviornment that has call after call with no space in-between, then you probably are witnessing burnout and won't have much consistency.

I'm am guessing that if you monitor several times a month and your center is not overflowing with calls, you will find that most of your agents are consistently (if not always) following guidelines month after month. If this fails, it's time for counseling.

[sjoseph]

Looking into your matter. I think you should have a word with u r tenured reps and see why do they lack in conssitency. stress the importance of quality, required in the work. Run out a survey or just pop out a questionnaire form to what the agents have in their mind. probabbly improving quality is on their part and we can only stress the importance

[Patti Scott]

I think our industry does struggle with burnout. The calls have to be non stop in order to be cost effective. We are trying an incentive this month where the high scorer have their name on the wall and at the end of the month the best of the best are going to pick a balloon and win a grab bag type prize. Any other ideas for an incentive? I think we need to bring some fun to the workplace.

[cclegg06]

IÂ’m reposting a reply from a previous posting here as well (see below).

IÂ’m a strong believer in monthly agent surveys that track performance. The data is used to match strong agents with challenged ones in a mentoring program. The whole thing becomes a part of a balanced approach to evaluation (along with a team leaderÂ’s silent monitoring and QA reporting).

Objective contactor feedback is a great tool. When you allow agents to be a part of the questionnaire design and they understand how the metrics are derived, the group becomes cohesive. IÂ’ve seen centers where the liveliest day of the month is the day when reports are distributed. As long as you make sure privacy is respected within the chain of management things can go very well. A fair reporting system is vital.

Drop me a line if you want to share war stories.

///PREVIOUS POSTING///

IÂ’ve had a lot of success measuring call center ROI through the combination of customer feedback combined with some center metrics.

1. Determine the “profits” made by the center. This is done by looking at the impact the center performance is having on customer loyalty and related word-of-mouth.

2. Determine profits made if no center was available. This is determined by looking at the loyalty of customers who do not contact for assistance.

3. Subtract 1 from 2 and you get a gain (or loss) in profits made by the center.

4. Subtract 3 from the overall cost of the center (salary, rent, overhead, etc.). This result in a “gain in profits after cost” (might be a negative number).

5. Divide 4 by the cost of the center and you have an ROI (return on investment) percentage.

The real value of this ROI is four fold. You have an argument of how the centerÂ’s operation contributes to the bottom line of the company. You have the ability to compare multiple centers. You have a benchmark from which you can track performance. You have a tool that is directly related to rep performance that relates to the overall companyÂ’s bottom line.

Â…

This is hard to explain in a brief posting. Please feel free to contact me directly by email or phone if youÂ’d like to schedule a time to talk. IÂ’ve been working with these models for about 5 years and am happy to share ideas and case studies.