The CCC research team is about a month into our upcoming research study on quality assurance (QA). One of the biggest trends we hear companies talking about is a major shift from a checklist-based approach to a subjective QA scorecard. In other words, moving away from a “did you do it, check yes or no” audit to a “how WELL did you do it” audit. The reasons for this shift could become a separate blog posting…but that’s for another day, another time.
Today I’m focusing a little downstream from this objective–>subjective shift to talk about one of the potential implications of a subjective QA approach.
Certainly the move from a checklist to a subjective scorecard will come with many change management implications. But, one of the largest of hurdles we have identified is how to handle variable compensation and incentives.
Currently, QA scores are a large part of variable payouts many frontline reps receive—and, therefore, reps (rightly?) ask for a specific definition when it comes to QA requirements. After all, with the checklist it’s much easier to know precisely what to do to get a high score. Not to mention, clear criteria provides an advantage when appealing a score. With subjectivity, however, reps are suddenly placing their financial gain (incentives) at the mercy of the QA “opinion.”
And, although guardrails—such as calibration transparency, well-defined subjective scoring criteria, and team-based goals—could be put in place to help allay rep fears about QA bias, the executives we’ve spoken with seem to be very hesitant to base incentives on subjective measures as well. It’s certainly critical to overcome these qualms on both ends of the organization – otherwise we’ll end up with a QA process likely to be bogged down with constant appeals and disputes.
Here are a few thoughts on addressing this conflict that have come up during member conversations:
- Incorporate customer surveys into incentives by creating an index score that uses subjective AND objective QA criteria and also incorporates customer survey scores. By combining three types of scores, the subjective QA piece will carry less weight, but the presence of survey data helps emphasize the customer experience over the objective “compliance” components.
- Use objective criteria to reach an incentive threshold—thereby ensuring equitable access to incentives, and then determine the payout amount based on subjective scoring.
- What if we didn’t use QA for incentives at all—instead focusing the outputs of QA exclusively on coaching and staff development? Would it still drive behavior? And if QA scores didn’t exist, what would be the alternative way to base variable comp on “quality”?
- Or…do we not give reps enough credit? Would the guardrails I mention above (calibration, rubrics, team goals, etc.) be enough to justify a subjective score to the extent that we can comfortably use it for variable comp?
So here’s my question to you: in making the shift to more subjective QA—or eliminating QA scores altogether—how might you handle the question of variable comp? Thinking outside the box is encouraged!
Related posts:
on June 17, 2010
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It is my perception that moving away from a check list approached Quality Program to a more subjective Quality Program. I believe it allows us as complanies to truely work to empower the frontline rep to build a relationship with the member while not seeming to live or die by a script that must be accomplished with in a member contact. Often times with in a checklist approach a rep tends to be to focused on meeting the check off than providing the best service to the memeber and this comes through with in the tone, words, and speed of the information being relayed back to the member.
It is also my perception that a incentive based payout around a three pronged approach of subjective, non subjective, and the perception from the member of the interaction (Survey Result) should be the way we as companies move to.
I believe both subjective evaluating with the combination of the three prong for measuring Quality Success is the only way for companies to go to continue to improve and shape the members perception of the best experience and solidifying member loyalty.
on June 17, 2010
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We are moving away from our 35 item yes/no list to a much more subjective form. It scares me like crazy, but we have no choice but to do it. We have evolved our call flow from an order taking situation to a more personalized, guest centric approach, and to do that really well, you cannot require all the same elements on every single call. We have long been listening to calls that score well, but just don’t feel warm and fuzzy or do anything at all to further enhance the guest relationship – they are just OK. But how do you motivate a rep to get better when they are consistently getting 90-95% simply because they hit all the elements?
A more subjective form will allow us to focus more on real opportunities rather than where we spend most of our time – pointing out where the rep got it wrong. It is a subtle difference, but it changes the entire coaching session.
on June 23, 2010
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I am in favor of the no score approach. While we are not currently using this approach, we did a couple years ago when we moved from a scripted environment to a conversational one and it worked wonders in getting employees to do the things we were looking for as far as customer service. We also need to do a very good job training those on the front line as to what we mean by “customer connection.” Removing incentives from the evaluation approach and tying them more directly to customer feedback would be far more valuable.
on August 10, 2010
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I have seen this in three different approaches. 1: Base your incentives on Customer feedback via surveys. 2: Base your incentive on objective check boxes of Yes or No. 3: Subjective opinions from the QA department agents. Of the three #1 came in highest to meeting the customer satisfaction we were aiming for. The past company reached an 89% Customer Satisfaction rating, and that was in their retention department. #2 went horribly wrong. The agents cared less about the customer and only worried about completing the check marks necessary for compensation. #3 we are currently using, is broken. The QA Manager currently recieves 100’s of disputes/appeals on a daily basis. The line agents feel the subjectivity is varied depending on who rates them, and they feel that it is unfair. Fewer agents are able to earn the necessary points for compensation so we see more and more agents give up. Why try if all of your efforts fail to meet minimum standards? We have seen where an agent is marked down for a statement, but right behind that we get a complementary call from the customer to a manager stating they were impressed with the interaction and felt great about the experience. This further leads us to believe that the only way to view the perspective of the customer is to ask the customer their perspective of the interaction. As a QA rep or Supervisor, Manager etc. I can only see the Company viewpoint, I can assume what the customer percieves, but when it comes down to it, everyone is different, each interaction is taken differently, it should be up to the customer to determine if the interaction was best for them, or not.
on November 26, 2010
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[...] Email Print This Post TweetBack in June, Lauren wrote a blog post launching CCC’s most recent research initiative on quality assurance (QA). Judging from the [...]
on March 7, 2011
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In reply to Christopher Yellen,
“We have evolved our call flow from an order taking situation to a more personalized, guest centric approach, and to do that really well, you cannot require all the same elements on every single call.”
in my opinion – you hit the nail on the head. Quality needs to fit the call – not the call fitting Quality