Hi.
I'm new to The Training Zone but not to L&D. Over the years, I've revamped the call quality form we use in our call centre (around 100 staff sell holidays) several times. It's time to change it again but I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions/ideas of how to make the process a bit more effective. Generally, Team Leader (who have around 8 people in their team) will spend one day per week listening to calls for their team. They're targeted to do 2 calls per person per week but this is rarely achieved. the general feeling among the Team leaders is that the current form isn't 100% fit for purpose and is rather time consuming. The call centre staff don't seem overly concerned with improving their score even though repeated negative scores can lead to disciplinary action.
Previously I've had questions that ask about the extent that a person does something i.e. the TL selects that they met, exceeded, or failed to meet a certain standard. These questions were split into sales and service. Each of these values was assigned a score and the form then totals the scores for each part and an overall total; the idea being that TLs could then focus on the specific area where the score(s) was low.
What I'd like to do is make the call quality more about coaching and improving the team. I'd like to make it quicker for Team Leaders to complete but also make sure it's something that is actualy used afterwards to develop staff.
I have considered the following:
- Link call quality to reward - something that is more instant so they can see the results of improvement quickly
- Implement different forms for staff i.e. have one form for new starts that doesn't expect quite as much and another for staff who've completed probation
- do we keep a score based form or do we make the questions more open? If it's open then there's an aspect of interpretation and person views involved, which might not give fairness across the 13 teams.
Basically, any advice or suggestions would be welcome to see what works in other L&D departments/call centres.
2 Responses
try different things
Hi Cheri, here's some ideas based on what I did when working in Call Centres.
We split the scorecard into 4 elements; the process/compliance (things like data protec tion) was the first element, customer relationship managment/demonstrating correct behaviours was the second, sales leads was the third and the fourth was a more subjective and about how did the call leave me feeling.
The first 3 elements were worth 90% of the overall score – they were more objective and some indicators were weighted. So customer elationship management was our biggest objective so scores around that had a higher weighting. As mentioned, those first 3 were objective and. had a yes/no/n/a response. The fourth element about how the call made me feel was more subjective and worth 10 % of the overall score.
The other thing was we got managers to move away from doing all of the call scoring on the same day as it was a bind for them and didn't give a real picture. So, we encouraged them to try different times of day and to test whether certain times affected call quality e.g. just before a break or nearer the end of the shift. This had the affect of spreading the workload over the week and not making it too onerous and also getting a better picture of an overall performance.
How to make people care about it is a trickier one but holding people individually accountable was a must. So, we made sure individuals knew exactly how reaching the standard helped meet company strategy and how it would impact them. What would happen if we did meet the standard and what would happen if we didn't. Not a threat but an adult-adult conversation where we asked for commitment from individuals linking to organisational strategy. Hope that helps.
Keep it simple
We had similar issues when I worked in a call centre a few years ago, and made various changes to our call QA forms.
Eventually we settled on a really basic format that was easy to complete, because even the best form is useless if not completed properly and acted on by the person receiving feedback.
There was a kind of yes/no check box which covered all compliance aspects (this was a Finance company) so you either passed by doing all of the things that essentially must be done like DPA or you failed, and that was the most crucial check on the form.
Then there were about a couple of scoring points which were more about general call quality; an overall call rating on how helpful and friendly they were, rapport etc… And a rating on the accuracy of information given to customer and also information recorded on the system (client details and notes). We had found that some staff got on really well with customers and developed a great rapport, but would slip on the details. Conversely, some would 'stick to the script' and carry out the call with a high accuracy level but could do with a more personal touch.
Finally, there would be two open comments; the best thing about how the call was handled, and the improvement point for future calls.
This worked quite well for us as it was straightforward and staff went away feeling good about the positive feedback but also with a specific point to improve on.
As for getting staff to care about the results, each person's weekly forms would be discussed by their team leader as part of their monthly 1:1 meeting as part of a general performance discussion which worked nicely. We also replaced our formal call training for new staff members with mentoring from experienced staff members who we knew performed consistently well. This tended to stir up a bit of healthy competition too, as most people like to think of themselves as good performers!
I hope this helps a bit and maybe helps spark some ideas 🙂