Support Services: Agent Metric Performance w/ variable ranges - a good idea?

Matt Bowling

For those of us who run call centers, or call center adjacent departments (level 1 customer support) we know that agent performance is key and that we have access to loads of data to create scorecards of metric-based performance.

Questions:

• How many of you are deploying ranges to evaluate the metric-based performance of your staff?
• What have you seen as pros and cons to this approach?
• Considering the thoughts and example below, would your department be successful?

Assumptions:

• Teams are diverse, with each agent having strengths and weaknesses.
• Singular metrics goals (i.e. Case Closed = 20/day | CSAT = 4.55) create definitive lines where success versus failing is binary, yes or no.
• Today's new employees do not work well in binary situations, can we create an environment that allows for several definitions of success in a metric-driven world?

Potential Example:

- depended variable: Cases Closed Volume | independent variables: CSAT, Case Age, Availability

When Volume = 20 then CSAT = 4.5, Case Age 16hr, Availability 80%

If Volume = 15 then CSAT = 4.75, Case Age = 12hr, Availability = 90%

If Volume = 25 then CSAT = 4.4, Case Age 20hr, Availability = 70%