MEASURING PERFORMANCE - Keeping Score Isn't Winning

By F. John Reh

Sure, when I play basketball against my brother I keep score. But what my score is at the end of the game doesn't matter unless it's bigger than his.

The same is true in business. Many business keep score, but that isn't enough. You have to manage the actions that will make that score bigger.

Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
Many business have certain metrics that they use to track their performance against company goals and Key Performance Indicators (KPI). It is important to note, however, that keeping score isn't enough. These metrics are only a guide to tell you how you are doing. You still have to manage the underlying activities that contribute to the numbers.

These are essential management tools and even if your company doesn't have them, you should establish and monitor KPI for your group.

What The Metrics Mean
Metrics are the scores you use to tell if you are getting closer to your goals. If, for example, you set a company goal of high customer satisfaction for all call centers you might conduct a survey of your customers to find out how satisfied they are. Your metric would be the average score for all transactions handled by the call centers. By tracking that metrics, you will know how well each call center is doing in achieving that goal.

You may find, as a result of your surveys, that

●  call center “A” has a customer satisfaction (CSAT) rating of
    75%,

●  call center “B” has a CSAT of 86% and

●  call center “C” is at 90%.

You decide that your goal is to have all call centers above 80% and an average of all call centers of more than 85%. Right now your average is 83.7% (75+86+90/3).

Each month you track it and it goes up. To 84%, 84.4%, and 84.9%. You look at that 84.9% - almost to your 85% target - and start checking your numbers. Did someone make a math error? Did someone forget to include the most recent survey result. Surely there must be some way to get the numbers up just a little in this report. WRONG.

Manage The Work, Not The Numbers
The problem is not in the numbers. The problem is in the activities. To raise your csat scores you have to find out what call centers “B“ and “C“ are doing well and get call center “A” to try that.. Is “B” answering calls faster? Does “C” have more senior people who can resolve customer issues on the first call? Does “A” need more product training? When you improve these activities, the scores will go up.

Don't try to manage the numbers. Yes, you could contact a customer who rated call center “A” a 7 out of 10 and ask them to change that to an 8 out of 10. If enough customers made that kind of change, you might be able to push your score from 84.9% to the target number of 85%. But it would be meaningless.

The goals is not really to score 85%; the goal is to do a good enough job of taking care of your customers that most of them say you did a good job. The CSAT metric is just a way of keeping score. The 85% is just a target. The way you win the game is by satisfying your customers.