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Customer Service Superstars: How to Evaluate Call Center Performance

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Conducting call center evaluations for customer service is essential for ensuring consistent quality and identifying areas for improvement. However, many companies just don’t have the resources available internally to conduct evaluations on a regular basis. This was the case for one of our clients, a specialty supplier of all types of metals, parts, and more. With over 100 locations, this made call center evaluations somewhat challenging.

We worked with the client to create a customized program that would supply them with the necessary data they were looking for. Who were their star performers? Who needed more training? Once established, this was integrated into their employee evaluations.

Here is an outline on how we created the program:

Starting Point

  1. Define Evaluation Criteria: Start by establishing clear and specific evaluation criteria. These criteria should align with your organization’s customer service standards and goals. Common evaluation criteria include communication skills, problem-solving abilities, product knowledge, empathy, professionalism, and adherence to company policies.
  2. Create Evaluation Forms: Design evaluation forms or scorecards that capture the defined criteria. The forms should be user-friendly and enable evaluators to score each criterion objectively. Use a scale (e.g., 1-5 or 1-10) to rate performance consistently.
  3. Train Evaluators: Ensure that the evaluators are well-trained on the evaluation process and criteria. Provide examples of both excellent and subpar interactions to establish a shared understanding of expectations.

Sample Size

  1. Random Sampling: Select calls for evaluation randomly from the call center’s daily interactions. Random sampling ensures a fair representation of agents’ performance and helps identify overall trends.
  2. Blind Evaluation: For more unbiased results, consider conducting blind evaluations where the evaluator does not know which agent handled the call. This helps prevent any personal biases from influencing the evaluation.

Monitor Improvement

  1. Identify Strengths and Areas for Improvement: After evaluating multiple calls, identify patterns in both positive and negative aspects of the interactions. Recognize agents’ strengths and acknowledge outstanding performance. Simultaneously, pinpoint areas where agents can improve and provide specific feedback.
  2. Provide Feedback: Schedule feedback sessions with individual agents to discuss the evaluation results. Deliver feedback constructively, highlighting successes, and offering actionable suggestions for improvement.
  3. Offer Training and Coaching: If specific areas of improvement are identified for multiple agents, consider providing additional training or coaching sessions to address these areas comprehensively.
  4. Track Progress: Regularly track agents’ progress over time. Use call center software and tools to monitor performance metrics and determine if evaluations lead to improvements.
  5. Recognize and Reward Excellence: Establish a recognition and rewards system to celebrate outstanding customer service performance. Recognizing top-performing agents can boost morale and motivation.
  6. Continuously Review and Improve: Customer service standards and customer expectations evolve, so regularly review and update your evaluation criteria and processes to keep them relevant.

By following these steps, you can create a structured and effective call center evaluation process that supports the development of top-notch customer service and enhances overall customer satisfaction.

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Behind the Customer Feedback Disconnect

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I have often wondered why so many large corporations and businesses opt to spend a lot of money on annual customer feedback surveys. Are they reliable? After all, is a customer going to recall every service touchpoint over a full year and be able to provide clear, actionable answers to survey questions?

While annual customer satisfaction surveys can provide some insights, they may have limitations that can make them less effective in capturing the dynamic nature of customer satisfaction.

Top 4 Reasons Why Annual Customer Surveys May Not Work as Well

  1. Lack of Timeliness: Annual surveys only capture feedback once a year, which means that any changes in customer preferences, experiences, or satisfaction throughout the year may go unnoticed. Customer satisfaction is a fluid and evolving aspect, and relying solely on an annual survey may miss out on capturing critical feedback that could have been addressed in a more timely manner.
  2. Recall Bias: The longer the time gap between the customer’s experience and the survey, the greater the chance of recall bias. Customers may struggle to accurately recall specific details, nuances, or emotions related to their experiences from several months ago. This can lead to less accurate or biased responses, limiting the reliability of the survey results.
  3. Inability to Address Real-Time Issues: Customer satisfaction surveys conducted annually may fail to address real-time issues or emerging trends. If a problem arises shortly after the survey is conducted, businesses may not become aware of it until the next survey cycle, missing an opportunity to address customer concerns promptly and mitigate potential negative impacts.
  4. Insufficient Actionability: Annual surveys often result in a large volume of feedback that needs to be analyzed and acted upon. Processing and interpreting the data from a comprehensive annual survey can be time-consuming, leading to delays in taking action. This diminishes the effectiveness of the survey as a tool for driving immediate improvements in customer satisfaction.

Customer Are Always Evolving

Annual surveys may not generate high levels of customer engagement or response rates. Customers may perceive them as time-consuming or repetitive, leading to survey fatigue and lower participation. This can result in a smaller sample size, potentially reducing the representativeness and reliability of the survey results.

Customer expectations and preferences are constantly evolving in response to market trends, innovations, and changing industry standards. An annual survey may not capture these evolving expectations, leaving businesses unaware of emerging customer needs and unable to adapt their strategies accordingly.

Customer satisfaction is an ongoing process, and businesses that rely solely on annual surveys may miss opportunities to collect regular feedback, make iterative improvements, and proactively respond to customer needs.

Regular Feedback

To overcome these limitations, businesses can consider supplementing annual surveys with more frequent feedback mechanisms such as post-transactional surveys, real-time feedback tools, customer support interactions, or social media monitoring. These methods enable businesses to capture timely feedback, address issues promptly, and continuously enhance customer satisfaction.

HubSpot offers an excellent explanation of how to build the best customer feedback survey. Below you will see some types of surveys. This gives us an idea of the different ways in which we can conduct surveys.

In conclusion, you can never hear form your customers too much. Maybe it is time to shake things up a bit and consider some new, innovative ways to connect!

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Customer Satisfaction Surveys: Are They Still Relevant?

You may wonder that in the age of online reviews, does a business really need to conduct customer satisfaction surveys. Between Google Reviews, Yelp, and Social Media Reviews, many companies have ditched the surveys.

Conducting customer satisfaction surveys is an effective way to understand your customers’ perceptions and experiences with your product or service. It goes way beyond an online review and when done correctly, can provide you with deeper customer insights.

Steps in Creating an Effective Customer Satisfaction Survey

  1. Define your objectives: The first step is to determine the purpose of the survey. What do you want to achieve? Are you looking to identify areas where you can improve your product or service, or are you simply looking to gauge overall satisfaction? Having a clear objective will help you create effective survey questions and analyze the results.
  2. Determine the survey method: You can conduct surveys through various methods, including email, phone, online surveys, or in-person surveys. Choose the method that best suits your audience and budget.
  3. Create effective survey questions: Your survey questions should be clear, concise, and relevant to your objectives. Avoid leading questions that may influence the response. Use a mix of open-ended and close-ended questions to gather both quantitative and qualitative data.
  4. Test the survey: Before sending out the survey, test it with a small group of customers to ensure that the questions are clear, and the survey is easy to complete.
  5. Send out the survey: Once you have finalized the survey, it’s time to send it out to your target audience. Make sure to communicate the purpose of the survey and the expected timeframe for completion.
  6. Analyze the results: Once you have collected the responses, analyze the data to identify trends and patterns. Look for areas where you can make improvements and areas where you are performing well.
  7. Share the results: Share the results with your team and stakeholders to keep everyone informed about the customer satisfaction levels. Use the insights gained from the survey to make informed decisions about product or service improvements.
  8. Take action: Finally, take action on the feedback received. Implement changes based on the feedback to improve customer satisfaction levels and retain customer loyalty.

Over the last 25 years, we have conducted a variety of customer satisfaction surveys for our clients. Contact us if you would like to learn more.

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