P&Q Challenge Looks for New Recruits

Nexidia are recruiting for the next set of P&Q Challenge Workshops.

The vision is to get everyone in the contact centre industry to collectively invent the next generation of operational practice in Performance Management and Quality Monitoring.

As part of the third P&Q Challenge graduates event, the latest tranche of newly accredited members were joined by previous graduates to discuss exactly what that impact has been and what the P&Q Challenge has meant to them.

Below are some of the highlights from that discussion:

“A key focus for us has been to empower our people to be in charge of their own development. Each month we encourage them to think about what they can do next to improve performance and what we can do to help. As a result, quality scores are going up and the majority of people feel more empowered and more supported.” Simon Thatcher, Echo Managed Services

“We asked senior management for a little bit of faith and reassured them that by getting the service right upfront, we would all avoid problems later on. Coaching is now a priority and because everyone listens to each other’s calls, we can hear best practice spreading.” Dee Chapman, Essex & Suffolk Water

“The perception of the customer service department has changed – they now know they are the most valuable part of the business. What’s more, we have changed perceptions of what quality is. We don’t focus on numbers, we measure customer outcomes – and customer delight is a real target discussed at board level. The board now believes what agents are telling them because perceptions have changed.” Charmaine Vallance-Poole, Neopost

“As a charity, we don’t have a lot of money to spend on improving operations, so we are using our front-line colleagues to help us build a more structured way of working. We are working very hard to document and map all of our internal processes so that there is a unified way of doing things. Front-line colleagues are happier now because their performance builds into a balanced scorecard and goals and targets are much clearer.” Alexandra Downes, Charities Aid Foundation

“The quality framework has become an action plan for the whole business and we will be introducing this approach to all clients. The framework has been built on advisor and team manager feedback – and 2,000 agents will be working towards the same quality goals, based around conversational effectiveness, as well as regulatory adherence.” Julia Ashman, Serco

“What we really want is to redefine quality for the organisation and actually act as advocates for customers when talking to other departments. We are lucky that our chief executive is very customer focused and he resolves to work to come up with permanent solutions rather than quick fixes.” Maureen Adams, Soha Housing

“Repeat call rate in our pilot has reduced from 24% to 9% through empowering the agents and meeting customer promises by case managing enquiries through to completion.” David Williams, Carpeo

“We haven’t stopped after completing the P&Q Challenge – we always saw this as an ever-evolving situation depending on customer and client trends. We now have a whole quality project team, from agents right through to the board, who work to support teams and make sure changes are driven through. We know that feedback is essential and that is now measured against performance.” Tracey Mallett, CPM UK Ltd

“The P&Q Challenge is not an initiative – it’s like an awakening, and once you have seen it, there is no going back. I knew it was going to work because it was so simple. We used to measure people by numbers, but we now measure people by quality. The focus for our staff now is to connect with the community – we have given them the tools they need to serve our residents better.” Adiba Ghauri, Harrow Borough Council

The latest graduates then had their chance to present to the group and detail the journeys they have been on as a result of being part of the P&Q community.

Suffice to say, in the words of Challenge leader Martin Hill-Wilson: “The new graduates are setting a new benchmark – improvements are getting better all the time.”