Operational areas

Performance Management

Setting proper customer care operations and measuring performance to drive excellent customer experiences

guide

Customer Care

Guide contents

  1. 1 Overview
  2. 2 Set expectations
  3. 3 Measurement

Performance management is an ongoing process for creating and maintaining high performance customer care operations. You must clearly communicate operational expectations and implement processes to measure, report and act on performance against those expectations.

  1. Overview

    Key considerations:

    • Clearly and carefully define your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
    • Be prepared to implement a rigorous governance and monitoring cadence to measure your KPIs

    Time:

    • KPIs need to be defined and included at the contracting stage of any outsourcing arrangement

    Your performance management processes must be based on defined and trackable operational metrics, clearly defining the roles and responsibilities for tracking and reporting those metrics. They should achieve the following objectives:

    • Detail the performance management processes and consequences for failing to meet targets
    • Promote and encourage agents to exceed targets and foster continuous process improvement

    The key steps in the performance management process are:

    1. Set expectations
    2. Measurement

  2. Set expectations

    You must clearly communicate your operational expectations. These expectations should be expressed in the form of well defined operational metrics, each with specified targets.

    Your operational metrics should provide insights into performance and the customer experience, helping to identify the root cause of the any problems and revealing opportunities for improvement. When setting performance targets, it is important to align incentives to your company’s objectives, encouraging your agents to make a positive contribution to the growth of your business.

    Customer Care Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

    Efficiency Metrics

    Core Metrics Unit Definition
    ASA- Average Speed of / to Answer time Time it takes to respond to an incoming enquiry
    TFR - Time to First Response time Time from first incoming contact received to first outgoing response
    AHT - Average Handle Time time The average time between start and end of a discrete support interaction
    TAT - Turnaround Time time Time between a case being assigned to an agent and a response from agent (either solution offered or need info)
    TFS - Time to First Solution time Time from first incoming contact to first solution offered
    FTR - First Time Resolution

    FCR - First Contact Resolution    		 % The proportion of issues resolved on first contact as reported by customers in post-interaction survey
    SDR - Same Day Response % The proportion of responses in the same working day (within 24 hours) of the enquiry
    TRT - Total Resolution Time time The total elapsed time from first incoming contact to last outgoing reply (i.e. the total time that it takes to close the case)

    Quality Metrics

    Core Metrics Unit Definition
    CSAT- Customer Satisfaction % Customers answering extremely or moderately satisfied on post-interaction survey
    DSAT - Customer Dissatisfaction % Customers answering dissatisfied on post-interaction survey
    RR - Resolution Rate % The proportion of contacts for which the customer's issue was resolved as reported by customers in post-interaction survey
    Quality % QA (Quality Assurance) scorecard score as defined internally
    Agent Quality % The % of agents with passing quality scores for a given time period
    Quality Variance

    Quality Calibration    		 % Measure how consistent QA scores are based on a benchmark QA score to check accuracy of QA staff reviews

    Cost & Demand Metrics

    Core Metrics Unit Definition
    Cost Per Unit $ Total cost divided by agreed 'unit' (e.g. total contact volume or total issue resolutions)
    Utilization % Customer-facing time divided by paid-for time (e.g. total phone, email or chat hours / billable hours)
    Staffing (to Forecast) % Actual head count divided by forecasted requirements for a given period of time
    Forecast Accuracy % Deviation between forecasted and actual contact volumes
    Escalation Rate % Interactions that are transferred or escalated to another party
    Backlog # Size of queue of unresolved tickets

    The KPIs that you select for your organization need to be clearly defined and communicated across your customer care operations. Each KPI should be assigned across all the roles in your organization, with each role having a clear set of KPIs for which it is responsible and measured by.

    Example role level KPIs:

    • Agents: Throughput, Quality, CSAT

    • Team Leads: Throughput, Quality, CSAT, TAT, TRT, AHT

    • Quality Specialists: Quality Variance / Calibration

    • Trainers: % of product or process errors in Quality and DSAT metrics that can be traced back to training through root cause analysis

    • Operations Managers: All defined KPIs, including continuous improvement and innovation

  3. Measurement

    You should implement an effective governance structure to ensure that your performance metrics are tracked and acted upon. They should be subject to robust analysis and the insights gained should be applied to operational planning and execution.

    We recommend establishing a governance forum to conduct well defined, periodic reviews of specific performance metrics, within their appropriate business context. It is critical to include the right participants in each of these reviews to allow you to draw relevant insights from your data and take appropriate actions.

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