Workforce Management Featured Article
Call Quality Scoring Built into Workforce Optimization Can Turbocharge Performance Evaluation
Most contact centers use call recording as a critical element of agent performance evaluation. The idea is that at review time, managers can listen to a critical mass of calls by each agent and use them to get a big-picture idea of how well the agent is doing his or her job.
Unfortunately, the process is rather subjective. If an agent later wishes for an explanation regarding why he or she received a low score or was denied a raise or promotion, managers aren’t often able to qualify their decisions. This can lead to accusations of favoritism, or it can mean that one manager in a large contact center is scoring agents doing similar jobs higher or lower than another manager.
To help solve the problem, many contact centers have fashioned a scorecard system that allows managers to provide agents with scores on individual performance elements, such as following the script or making upsell or cross-sell offers. Companies should tap multiple resources in determining the most important elements to include in the scorecard, and build a set of standardized performance evaluation criteria in order to make the process fairer.
The best approach to using scorecards for performance evaluation, according to Chuck Ciarlo, CEO of Monet Software, is to ensure that the call recording solution and the scorecard process are integrated.
“Once you have chosen the standards that work best for your call center, a unified call recording/call scoring workforce optimization solution will automate the review and evaluation process,” blogs Ciarlo. “That means faster results, more accurate results in the form of reports and statistics, and a reliable blueprint for necessary revisions and updates based on the data provided.”
Many organizations have found that the single most important tool in attaining true employee engagement is frequent evaluation that is fair, outcome-based and crafted in a way that benefits the employee as well as the company (helping the employee build new skills, for example). When the performance management process is overly complex, dated or paper-based, the chances are good that managers won’t have the time to evaluate very often.
When the scorecard feature is built into the workforce optimization or performance management solution, the process becomes easier and companies can do it more often, which helps improve outcomes.
“Call scoring provides a means to turbo-charge your training efforts that already incorporate recorded calls,” writes Ciarlo. “Scoring furnishes a means to identify the weakest areas of agent performance, and combined with a review of call recordings paints a more precise picture of where agents need to improve, and the steps necessary to get there.”