A Quality Revolution has been emerging in the last two years, transforming underleveraged and under-performing Quality & Call Monitoring Programs into predictors and drivers of performance improvement. The centerpiece of the revolution is Strategic Quality Assurance (sQA), and it works because it blends equal parts art and science.
In our first article, we looked at the Dirty Little Secret in Conventional Quality Programs, and gave a brief overview of all five keys.
Let’s focus on Key #1: Embrace Subjectivity in your Behavior Definitions. And this, in some ways, is the most difficult leap for some organizations to make. To effectively implement sQA, you have to start by disobeying the conventional wisdom and retrain your brain to think differently about how Quality has been done for the last 20 years.
The Problem: Conventional Wisdom
The conventional wisdom – built upon years of good intentions – says that Quality should measure clear, objective, black-and-white behaviors. The thinking is that if we want to drive standardization in call performance, then those standards must be clear, substantive, specific. If we want to consistently calibrate on behaviors, then those behaviors must be easy to calibrate to. And if we want to measure Reps on their Quality performance (and put it on their scorecard), then those measures must be clear and objective.
That all makes sense, right? Except…
Rigid behaviors create rigid Reps. Conventional Quality Programs create a checklist of tasks that a Rep must execute on every call, lest they incur the wrath of the Quality staff. The Reps I’ve interviewed live in fear of going outside the lines that Quality has drawn. And this fear forces them into robotic, plastic conversations with the customers.
I’ve conducted more than 30 focus groups with Call Center reps about their Quality Programs. Two quotes have stuck with me:
Think about that: These reps want to do the right thing, but their conventional Quality Program has created an over-regimented environment that makes that impossible.
Here’s an example:
One Quality Program I was evaluating included a behavior called “Effective Communication.” The rules for getting high marks on this behavior included:
These might all be valuable, noble techniques for a Rep to practice on some calls. But, when mandated, they turn Reps into robots, for two reasons:
The Solution: Disobey Conventional Wisdom and Embrace Subjectivity
The goal should be to measure the essence of the customer interaction, not the details. To encourage a Rep to follow the “spirit of the law” rather than the “letter of the law.” So, instead of defining a behavior with a set of tasks for the Rep to accomplish, define it with the intent of the behavior in mind.
What is the “intent” of a behavior? It might be how we want the customer to perceive the Rep.
So let’s revisit our “Effective Communication” behavior:
Conventional Behavior | Revolutionized sQA Behavior that Embraces Subjectivity |
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Communicate Effectively
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Communication: Communicate with the customer in a way that relates to the customer, so that the customer feels appreciated as a person |
Notice that the focus on the sQA Behavior is the customer’s perception. This probably feels vague, not specific enough, right? It feels subjective. It puts more burden on the Quality staff to capture the essence of that interaction.
But, it’s worth it. We are trying to empower the Rep to listen to the customer, to connect, and to be human. The Rep might choose to use a pause technique, or avoid technical jargon… or not. The Rep chooses the best path to appreciate the customer, and the Quality staff evaluates whether or not they believe the customer felt appreciated (that is, whether or not the intent was met).
Another way to revolutionize your behaviors, and embrace subjectivity, is to focus on the outcome of the behavior, not the task:
Conventional Behavior | Revolutionized sQA Behavior that Embraces Subjectivity |
---|---|
Ask Probing Questions
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Determine Customer Needs:
|
In the conventional example, the rep is encouraged to execute a task: Ask questions, three or more to be exact. But savvy reps quickly realize that to receive a “perfect score,” they can ask questions half-heartedly, without actually discovering customer needs. This hardly accomplishes the “spirit” of the behavior, nor does it measure the essence of excellent needs discovery.
In the revolutionized sQA Behavior, the Rep is evaluated on whether or not he or she achieves the desired outcome: discovering customer needs. The Rep might uncover needs through questions (as many as needed – no more and no less), or through listening, or simply because the customer came right out and stated his needs.
The Rep is also evaluated on how the customer perceives this part of the interaction. Did the customer perceive that the rep really cared about the customer’s individuality (“in a way that results in the customer appreciating…”)? Again, we define the ideal customer experience, and then empower the rep to figure out the best way to deliver it. What we really care about is the essence of this moment: how the customer responded to the probing, not how well the Rep can follow a checklist.
What’s Next: Join the Quality Revolution by Building out the Rest of Your sQA Program
Embracing subjectivity works because it more effectively mirrors the customer interaction. Your Reps’ interactions with customers are inherently human, and can only be measured by striving to measure the essence, rather than the details, of those interactions.
And, subjectively defined behaviors correlate to KPIs four to five times as much as checklisted behaviors. In other words, subjective behaviors matter, and they ‘predict’ results.
To delve more deeply into correlations, make sure you read the next article in this series, Key #2: Correlate and Measure ‘Predictiveness’, so you can quantify how meaningful each of your behaviors is to your KPIs. This is the essential science to balancing out the art of embracing subjectivity.
The Quality Revolution
Read the complete series of articles for a roadmap to transforming your Quality Program into Strategic Quality Assurance (sQA), and making it a lever for performance improvement:
Peter Beaupre is a Principal at Weber Associates, and has spent the last 16 years developing and implementing programs that drive front line sales and service success in Call Center and Field Sales organizations. He is passionate about the Quality Revolution, and has seen its effects firsthand with clients such as Time Warner Cable, Comcast and Mitsubishi. Follow Follow him on LinkedIn or contact him directly at pbeaupre@weberassoc.com.