You know your contact center agents work hard. You’ve seen them in action. But do you know how effective their hard work really is? How productive are your agents? It can be hard to determine how efficient their efforts are when you’re only seeing part of the big picture each day.

Having a call center performance scorecard - and a sensible way to collect the information you need for one - is your best bet for getting a better idea of your agents’ true level of efficiency and productivity. Here, we’ll show you the best way to create and analyze your center’s scorecard - and how to use it to educate and motivate your agents to perform even better in the coming year!

What is the Point of a Performance Scorecard?

Some of the biggest and most successful companies in today’s marketplace regularly evaluate the performance of their employees through the use of scorecards. These easy-to-read metric collections measure everything from customer satisfaction level to performance speed, efficiency, productivity, and more.

What your management team chooses to measure through scorecards should be based on the improvement needs of your facility. Regardless of what you track and tweak through scorecard use, though, these convenient collections of relevant data can help your team make major improvements through the evaluation of current performance and weaknesses.

How Can You Create a Useful Scorecard for Your Agents?

Before you can make use of a scorecard or the information it can yield, you will need to determine exactly what you’re trying to gain from the process. What do you hope to achieve through the use of a scorecard? Are there specific weaknesses or shortcomings in your facility that you’re trying to focus on improving, or are you using this as a way to figure out what those are? Is your sole purpose to keep tabs on the effectiveness of your staff’s work and your center’s overall productivity, or do you have other motives?

Scorecards can help you with all of this, but knowing what you’re looking for before you start will help you make a solid plan for getting there. Much like taking a trip without a map or knowledge of where you’re going, undergoing the scorecard creation and utilization process without a plan can lead you to results you can’t use or don’t need. It’s always good to know where you’re headed before you set out on your journey!

Here are a few steps to creating the most useful scorecard for your center. Tailor them to your facility’s unique needs for the best results.

• Get everyone involved from the beginning. Even before you get started creating your scorecard, you should take the thoughts and preferences of those interested and invested in the outcome into consideration. For your center, this may mean your management staff, your call center agents, your consumers, or your company’s investors. Whoever has a stake in the productivity and performance of your center should have some kind of input when creating the guidelines for your scorecard creation process.
  
  
• Create your criteria. Once you know what the important people involved in the process are looking for in terms of information, it’s time to create criteria for how that information will be gathered. Remember that there are many ways to gather relevant statistics, including various formats of question and response. Too few questions and even the slightest deviations can dramatically alter your results; too many questions or too much leeway in the replies and you could end up with more information than you can effectively analyze.
  
  
• Choose your platform wisely. How you manage your scorecards and the information therein is entirely up to you. Some centers use reliable standby formats like spreadsheets, while others prefer more modern software integration. Choose what works for you and your staff.
  
  
• Get started - but prepare to tweak things along the way. Once you’re ready to initiate your scorecard information collection, remind your staff that all procedures and resulting data are tentative. There will always be adjustments that need to be made along the way to ensure that the information you are collecting is as relevant as possible. Monitor the use of the scorecards from the moment of launch and refine the process as necessary.
  
  
• Collect and organize your information. After the launch of your scorecard process, it is time to begin compiling information. Be sure that everything you collect is organized so that it can be used properly. Organizing as you go - preferably as an integrated part of your collection process - is key to being able to use the information later.

What Should Come of Your Use of the Scorecard?

It is important to do something useful with the data that comes from your scorecard implementation. As your data is compiled, it should be scrutinized and adjustments to your process should be made. Periodic review and refocusing of your efforts will yield better results moving forward.

Today’s technology lets you do this easily. There are software programs specifically designed to help managers collect information and put it to use, some of which can also help you create the scorecards you use in your center. Choosing the right program can be a boon in simplifying the process - and getting the most use out of the information you secure.

When you’re ready to create a meaningful contact center performance scorecard, turn to the industry experts at ChaseData. We have the tools and technology to make the entire process faster and easier - and to yield information that your managers can actually use to improve the performance of every agent in your center. To learn more about our software solutions and how we can help, give us a call today!