You have to keep score in order to identify the winner of a game. This age-old social rule is the underlying premise of performance scorecards as well as why they are important to contact center success.
In baseball, the ballpark scoreboard tells you the cumulative score as well as how many runs were scored by each team in each inning. The scorecard lets you keep track of what happened player by player, every pitch of every at-bat, that contributed to that score.
Great teams want the scoreboard to reflect a win, but they also study the scorecard to learn their strengths and weaknesses. They use the scorecard to strategically maximize their performance as well as to identify key areas for more training, practice and improvement.
The same is true for great companies and how they utilize contact center performance scorecards.
A contact center performance scorecard tracks what happens during the “game” of customer experience by measuring agents’ performance.
And while a baseball player’s key performance indicators (KPIs) tracked on a scorecard are very standard — hits, runs, runs batted in, etc. — a contact center agent’s KPIs and scorecard are customized to what’s important to your business goals and company standards.
To do this successfully you’ll need to identify the practices, compliance requirements, and overall outcomes that matter most to your business. With these details outlined, a custom scorecard can be designed to gather the metrics needed to help your agents — and your customers — succeed.
Performance Scorecard Metrics to Consider
While ultimately the performance metrics selected will be unique to your organization and contact center, here are some general performance indicators to be considered when tailoring your scorecard:
Agent Adherence to Company Policy and Procedures
What policies and procedures do you have in place that you expect your contact center agents to follow? For example, are they required to review prior notes on a customer before offering a solution? What kind of follow-up rules have you set in place for your agents to abide by? What kind of notes do you want them to make after each interaction with a customer?
Focus on Customer Experience
This area of your performance scorecard tracks how well your agents are staying focused on your customer’s experience. For example, do they maintain a positive attitude and avoid negative comments? Is the customer’s issue resolved during a single interaction?
Soft Skills
You can also develop a performance scorecard to track and measure soft skills such as using the customer’s name, showing empathy, and making notes about specific details regarding points of connection.
Language and Communication
You may want to track whether the agent used language and a communication style that was appropriate and easy to understand. Were they concise? Did they use an appropriate tone to put the customer at ease and to make them feel heard and understood?
Professional Standards
Consider measuring things such as hold times, length of calls, agent attitude, and listening aptitude. Determine what your company standards are so that you can communicate them and uphold them using a performance scorecard.
The Importance of Performance Scorecards Goes Beyond Tracking and Measuring
A baseball team wouldn’t be very effective if they showed up to the game without knowing the rules or what is expected of them. It’s unfair to keep score without being clear on how the scoring works.
But when the expectations are clear, the players can focus on doing what is required to meet and exceed expectations. They can focus on the specific things they must do to improve as a player and help the team win.
Your contact center agents may not be playing baseball but knowing what they’ll be scored on and how their performance will be evaluated helps them show up ready to win.
With all this in mind, it is important to remember the goal of keeping score isn’t only to record the wins, it’s also to identify opportunities for improvement.
Peter Drucker said, “You can’t improve what you don’t measure.” And he said that in regard to business, not sports. It’s like the common adage that people will respect what you inspect.
Performance scorecards provide the measurements and information needed to identify and establish the improvements your business needs to grow and thrive.
Using Performance Scorecards Effectively
Curious about performance scorecards for your organization, or how to improve your existing metrics and take your customer experience to the next level? We’re here to help.
To get in touch, use this form to book a call or you can reach us directly at 1-800-397-3515. If you prefer email, you can connect with us at info@arcqs.com.