{Raising the Bar

VertiSoft is a specialized software developer focusing on verticals such as architecture, the airline industry, biotechnology companies among others.

Annual sales of more than US$ 1.1 billion.

Growing at 30 to 40 percent per year.

High profit margins.

Headquartered in Dallas.

Customer service and technical support team in New Brunswick, Canada.

Understanding the Firm

Located in New Brunswick due to • excellent education levels in the community• high-quality technological infrastructure because of state policy of

supporting telecommunications firm• grants for training and development provided by the province.

VertiSoft was pleased with the quality of its employees.

Future increase in labor costs due to shortage of labor.

Hence, greater labour productivity required to drive profits.

Customer Service and Technical Support Team

Time to Assist to completion – Avg amount of time

(in minutes) taken to assist a customer.

Avg amount of time taken to

refer to a technical support

specialist.

Computer-based survey sent to

every tenth caller to rate the quality

of service.

Random observations of calls between customers and representatives,

audited for "quality".

Performance Metrics Introduced

CALL DURATION

TIME TO

REFER

CUSTOMERSATISFACTION

CALLAUDITING

ϪCall Duration was dropping

ϪCustomer satisfaction was increasing

Ϫ Time to refer to software experts was reducing

Ϫ Substantial employees were scoring low on these measures.

ϪMany dedicated and cheerful employees scored low.

Results of Performance Appraisal System

• Wants to publish performance ranking of employees

• Believes the ranking will instil competitive instincts in the employees

• Assumes this will lead to people performing better by raising the bar themselves

Jenkins (Manage

r)

• Does not want to publish rankings• Fears its impact due to unions and tight

labour market• Wants to use the numbers as one of the

factors in the semi-annual appraisals

Sunita Prakesh

(HR Head)

Using the ‘Numbers’- Differing Viewpoints

Aims to • Ensure that an

employee’s performance is supporting the company’s strategic aims.

• Improve organisational effectiveness.

• Build employee motivation

• Create channels for discussions and platform for feedback and improvement.

Total Quality Management• Modern Performance

management systems integrate appraisal and training needs

• Developmental plans to align the employee objectives with the company objectives in the short and the long run.

Performance Appraisal Process

•Define the Job

•Appraise performance

•Provide feedback

Performance Management

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Realistic

Time bound

Goal Setting

SMAR

T

Does not employ the correct performance metrics

This is having unreliable results

The current performance metrics lack the following characteristics

• They are not

linear

• They are not

reliable

• They are not

repeatable

• They are not

consistent

Current Approach

Performance metrics should

Allow accurate and

detailed comparisons

Lead to correct

conclusions

Be well understood by everyone

Have a quantitative

basis

Area of concern:

To publish the

performance results

Recommendation: Performance metrics result not to be published• Reason: Will

demotivate the lower strata employees and can be counter productive to efficiency of the organization

Alternative Model:• Every employee should know his

performance data but not of others • Team supervisor should all the

performance data of his team members for continuous monitoring

• Introduction of reward system to top ranking employees to motivate

• Introduction of a feedback mechanism so that Employee problems and system inefficiencies can be immediately dealt with

Action Points

Area of Concern: Evaluation of the proposed performance metricsRecommendation: Current evaluation system is too broad and suffers from inconsistenciesProposed Metrics:

Action points

What to Measure

• Employee Effectiveness

How to Measure

• BARS Approach

Alternative Performance Management System

Using ratings scales with labels or

anchors reflecting examples of poor, average, and good

behavioral incidents

Five step development

process

Critical incidents are

written

The critical incidents are

clustered into

performance dimensions

Reallocation of incidents

Each critical incident

(effective/ ineffective) is rated on 7-to-9 point scaleDeveloping

final incident

Behaviourally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS) Approach

Qua

lity Call-Handling

Process • Telephone

etiquette • Knowledge and

competency • Error/rework rate 

• Adherence to protocol

• Transfer rate

Ser

vice Accessibility

• Blockage• Hours of

operation• Self service

availability

Speed of service:

• Service level • Average speed of

answer • Longest delay in

queue 

Eff

icie

ncy Average time

• Average handle time 

• After-call work time 

• On-hold time 

Resource Utilization 

• Agent occupancy • Staff shrinkage 

• Schedule efficiency 

Cost Efficiency

• Conversion rate• Cost per call

Performance metrics for call centre employees

R e f e re n c e :h t t p : / / c . y m c d n . c o m / s i t e s / w w w. n a q u i t l i n e . o r g / re s o u rc e / re s m g r / i s s u e _ p a p e r s / c a l l c e n t e r m e t r i c sp a p e r b e s t p r. p d f