How Quality Scorecards Support Customer-Oriented Behaviour

Dick Bourke of Scorebuddy discusses how you can design a quality scorecard that helps to nurture customer-orientated behaviours.

Companies that carefully gather and assess call centre data have more effective call centres that are not viewed as cost centres but as growth-driving centres. Once leadership understands that measurement matters, there needs to be agreement on what to measure and then what to do with that collected data.

There are many metrics available in the typical call centre, divided into production metrics, e.g. ASA, AWT, calls handled, and qualitative measures, e.g. customer sentiment, quality assessment and agent satisfaction.

Scorebuddy, a contact centre Quality Assurance (QA) tool, is designed to shine a light on the qualitative metrics, as well as track those quantitative metrics that some find relevant.

As a part of the Scorebuddy team, I suggest you consider a few important things as you determine which metrics are most important to the success of your call centre.

Goal-setting is paramount. Whether that goal is to increase NPS, reduce client churn, increase first call resolution, or all of the above, you will quickly find that most roads lead directly to customer satisfaction.

Companies don’t have it easy. Depending on the product or service, there can be many touchpoints on the buyers’ journey; and to achieve customer satisfaction and earn customer loyalty, the call centre is a key touchpoint where relationships are reinforced or broken. The customer experience does not end, but merely begins, at the point-of-sale.

Customers may need assistance from the initial purchase, to support on how to use the product, returns and all the way to renewals. From the company perspective, there are always up-sell opportunities, increasing lifetime customer values, and long-term corporate reputations to consider.

McKinsey & Company recently reported: “Today’s customers do not only buy products and services — more and more, their purchase decisions revolve around buying into an idea and an experience.”

And so call centre agents, the people on the front lines of your organisation who interact one-on-one with your customers on a daily basis, must absolutely facilitate this experience. In fact, you could argue that because the agents are conveying this experience on a daily basis, they should be the masters of the customer experience, pushing it farther.

Getting this right requires call centre agents who are selected for and trained with the emotional intelligence to meet customers where they are. Agents must be able to engage with and respond to clients in a spontaneous, but appropriate way that is preferably unscripted.

Through customer-oriented behaviour that includes a mix of empathy, anticipation, education, and personal anecdotes, call centre agents can give customer satisfaction a big boost. 

Scorebuddy is designed to gather rich data at this key moment along the customer journey. Through the use of QA scorecards, these seemingly intangible data points may be collected, measured, and managed in a way that highlights the path to reaching your goals.

How Can Customer-Oriented Behaviours Be Measured Through a Well-Designed Scorecard?

Designing a scorecard that maps to your company goals and the customers’ expectations will organise data that results from the scoring process and doesn’t just focus on the outcomes. A well thought-out design will measure the soft skills and emotional connections that make an OK call into an awesome call.

Tagging the score with coaching comments and the root cause underlying poor outcomes will allow you to know where you need to change behaviours or apply coaching and training.

Here are some pro tips for call centre scorecard success:

• Focus on the goal. Know what you’re aiming to assess and be clear about it with your agent. There is no need here for mystery.
• Solicit agent input. Don’t go at it alone. Be sure you know what the agent is thinking and why.
• Adjust parameters as necessary. Rigidity will not help when measuring such intangible data. Goal-setting counts, but it is important to be flexible as you learn more.
• Collect and share your data. Examine trends that reveal key insights to share with leadership and call centre agents alike.

How Can Customer-Oriented Behaviours Be Encouraged?

The number-one way to encourage call centre agents to exemplify customer-oriented behaviour is to include them in training sessions. Yes, train your team, but also be sure they understand why they are being trained.

You know that communication between your employees and your customers is essential for customer satisfaction. But do you also know that the same level of communication is necessary between your leadership team and call centre agents?

Empower your agents to adopt self-scoring processes. Invite them to develop scorecard questions they deem important. Let them see their scorecard results ahead of reviews so there is ample time to learn, grow, and adjust their customer-oriented behaviours.

Use scorecard data to avoid disappointing surprises so that improvements may be made in real time, on the very next call. And finally, when succeeding, reward your call centre agents

How Can Customer-Oriented Behaviours Be Rewarded?

Ultimately, how your organisation chooses to reward its employees is entirely up to you. What we can tell you is that rewards do make a difference in the personal and professional lives of your employees. Happier employees translate to happier customers, so keeping your employees happy is always a good idea.

Scorecards help track which individuals or teams are outperforming, so it is easy to determine who or which group to reward for over-achievement. For example, reward the most improved or highest scores in a particular week.

Buy the highest daily achiever a cup of coffee or a gift card for a tank of fuel. Rewards do not need to be fancy or expensive to be effective. Contests can be fun. Consider engaging your agents in some friendly competition or a more collaborative team-oriented game.