COACHING AND QUALITY IN AN INTERNATIONAL TELECOM COMPANY

The telecom company puts a lot of effort into quality monitoring and there are several instruments used for this. First, customer satisfaction is measured each month by an external organization. Not only its own customers, but also customers of other companies are asked about the company’s services in the past six months, and the results are given to management. Furthermore, there are internal customer panels that provide qualitative information. E-mails and the website are evaluated by a net questionnaire. In addition, employee satisfaction is measured once every two years with a survey and once every three months with a short questionnaire.

Secondly, the handling and logging of calls (including what CSRs do on the computer) is recorded by the monitoring system. This provides qualitative information for team leaders. In addition, the team leaders evaluate four calls of each CSR every month. They use specific evaluation criteria for this, which are based on customer satisfaction, like degree of empathy, first-time resolution, closing of conversation, etc. In the past, CSRs knew that their calls would be recorded in even weeks or in uneven weeks. As this turned out to bias the monitoring, they decided to record 20 per cent of all calls.

The evaluation of these taped calls is discussed in a one-to-one talk between the CSR and the team leader. CSRs also receive information on their performance on their Agent Score Card with important quantitative KPIs. This scorecard is also discussed in the monthly bilateral talks. It is used for improvement only, not for judging performance in a formal way. For example, the team leader might notice that the CSR needs more skills in a specific area. He or she will then decide which intervention is necessary. One outcome could be more training, in which case the team leader and the CSR can take a look at the training catalogue in which all training courses, e-learning and manuals are listed. After one month, the team leader and the CSR evaluate the intervention together. All team leaders follow courses on giving feedback. They have a coaching role, but it is acknowledged that this is not fully developed at the moment. In general, the company wants to ‘train less and coach more’ in the future.

Once every three months, CSRs have an appraisal interview with their team leader, and once a year a performance interview. This performance interview is usually scheduled in January or February. CSRs and team leaders look back on the past year, review the salary, and set expectations for the next year. Important KPIs on which performance is monitored are average handling time, adherence time (this is the time CSRs work on schedule and are not taking too many breaks), logging percentage, first-time resolution, and front-line completion.

CSR training is also evaluated. For example, at the end of each e-learning module, there is an evaluation form that CSRs fill in. In addition, the last day of induction training is spent on evaluation. These training judgements made by trainees are in line with Kirkpatrick’s level 1 training evaluation. The contact centre is developing an evaluation based on Kirkpatrick’s level 2: what did CSRs learn? Level 3 would imply an evaluation of whether skills learnt are actually applied at the job. Kirkpatrick’s level 4 was assessed as part of the international company’s evaluation of the impact of training actually leading to improved performance.