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1. Hi Carmitt: Just finished reading your posts and found it to be very interesting. We started communicating departmental goals and expectations on a monthly basis two years ago and the results have been astounding. Last year we raised our NPS 15% points due in a large part to a more focused approach as to what each agent was expected to do.

   We’re trying to introduce such a scorecard to our team however the one stunbling block is the heavy lifting that needs to be done manually to get the results.

   I’m guessing we haven’t purchased MPM otherwise we would be using it by now. We’re in a tough spot as far as purchases for 2010 but I would like to learn more about MPM in case I can work it in for 2011.

   Comment by Chuck Udzinski— August 11, 2010 #

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   • Good afternoon Chuck and thank you for your post!

     I know that creating and updating agent report cards manually is a big time drain (according to an article published in the Harvard Business Review [1] 90% of managers spend their time on ineffective tasks– among them the reporting task you describe), but the fact that you are seeing such a dramatic improvement in your NPS Score indicates that 1) the high-level work we did on the agent scorecard appears to be targeting the right agent behaviors (for now) and 2) that you and your team are effectively coaching, training and holding people accountable for results.

     MPM (Metrics Performance Manager) is an upgrade to the VoCPM (Voice of the Customer Performance Manager) analytic tool you are using today. It allows me to review the business more holistically due to its ability to pull in multiple data sources. For scorecards, it would eliminate any manual scorecards your team is creating by hand, and provide near real-time reporting. Jim will be onsite on the 20th, I will make sure he puts this on his agenda.
     Thanks again for your post,
     Carmit DiAndrea

     References:
     1.Bruch, H. & Ghoshal, S. (2002). Beware the. Harvard Business Review, pp 62-69. Retrieved 10 August 2010

     Comment by Carmit DiAndrea— August 11, 2010 #

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2. Outstanding piece, Carmit! I’m consistently amazed at how many call centers are managed with the “shrug and nudge” approach. Unfortunately, I often see organizations where the current methodology of performance management, no matter how dysfunctional, tends to be ingrained both in Executive Management and in the entire Operations Management culture. How does Customer Relationship Metrics work through this thought barrier and overcome the resistance to change?

   Thanks again for a great piece of writing!

   Jay

   Comment by Jay Hammans— August 12, 2010 #

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3. Hello neighbor and thank you for your post!

   We use a three-phased methodology in working with our business partners, that is loosely based on the work of Dr. Robert Cialdini. The discovery work we do with clients before ever engaging with them helps us identify their key triggers, but the methodology looks like this:
   1. Let the data speak for itself
   2. Comparison to others (benchmarking)
   3. Loss-based analysis

   Given that my role is largely focused on letting the data speak for itself, here are a few examples. When Customer Relationship Metrics is engaged with a business partner for whom we’re collecting customer experience surveys, we let the customer data speak for itself. As compelling as I would like to think I make data seem, at the end of the day the customers are the ones who vote with their dollars, making them the most important and persuasive voice to executive management. It’s hard to argue with a comment like this one from a customer ”In 2001, I closed all my accounts and lines of credits with you. I told my employees that if any of them continue to do business with your bank, they can consider themselves terminated. I will never do business with you again.”

   A few (or few dozen) comments along these lines and it becomes very hard to assert that your organization’s approach is to customer service is the right one.

   In situations where our engagement focuses on business intelligence (and customer experience data may not exist), we once again rely on data to debunk an organization’s notions about service, management, business practices, etc. It is difficult to argue with data that indicates that allowing a call to extend beyond the 7 minute handle time “guideline” results in the elimination of XX% of calls, that the same call handled by vendor A as opposed to vendor B takes XX second less and results in a XX% higher rate of resolution, that agents waste XX% of their time assisting customers with a rebate process the organization purposely made difficult.

   I hope this begins to address your question Jay!

   Thanks again for your thought-provoking post,
   Carmit DiAndrea

   Comment by Carmit DiAndrea— August 12, 2010 #

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