{"id":97508,"date":"2014-03-26T13:16:05","date_gmt":"2014-03-26T20:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/feeds.feedblitz.com\/~\/59959450\/0\/brainfood-extra~Performance-and-Quality-Core-To-Ongoing-Customer-Service-Innovation"},"modified":"2014-03-26T13:16:50","modified_gmt":"2014-03-26T20:16:50","slug":"performance-and-quality-core-to-ongoing-customer-service-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/performance-and-quality-core-to-ongoing-customer-service-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"Performance and Quality \u2013 Core To Ongoing Customer Service Innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"
The P&Q challenge<\/a> is a global first. It remains a unique experiment in sustained collaboration for the customer service industry. Unlike conferences or training programmes which are typically run over a few days at most, this programme provides a six month window for sustained planning and learning.<\/p>\n The result is that organisations are able to upgrade complex ecosystems such as quality and performance management in an effective transformational context. This compares with the usual tactical tinkering around ecosystem elements such as an evaluation form or a new coaching module. Instead P&Q has nurtured strategic thinking in people whose daily operational pressures seldom allow for reflection and creative debate.<\/p>\n The results have shown just how important this type of event is in order to help the customer service industry rise to the opportunities now engulfing it. While the rhetoric of customer experience infused with digital, social and mobile behaviours paints a brave new world that everyone wants to embrace, in reality the last 30 years of strategic neglect cannot be sidestepped overnight.<\/p>\n Fragmentation abounds. Point solutions still hold sway. For many, investment decisions remain conservative and probably the leadership required to fast track customer service towards a digital future is not always in place. But needs must and ways through are being found by the most enterprising and ambitious in the industry.<\/p>\n Indeed these are the ones who have found themselves on the P&Q challenge. They have been fast to acknowledge that the traditional mindset and practices are outmoded. Equally, they have been quick to get on board as pioneers. And are also keen to get their organisations ahead of the competitive pack. After all, what is more central to the mission of \u2018customer service as a differentiator\u2019 than the twin focus of quality and performance?<\/p>\n As someone with 30 years under his belt, I\u2019m always on the lookout for a way to further the customer service industry\u2019s strategic agenda. In a previous lifetime, I\u2019d facilitated 5 years of best practice forums for a contact centre SI. One of the all time favourite topics was Performance and Quality. Always a full house, the discussions covered familiar ground. The frustrations of manual sampling. The relationship between quality coaches and team leaders. The techniques for calibration.<\/p>\n It struck me how poorly those who told their stories were being served by the vendors. Little if any educational support. Same old templates. No leadership to advance the art of the possible. These, plus an unhealthy obedience to regulatory definitions of quality, left everyone working in a low yield, high effort context.<\/p>\n A little later I had a chance to design a complete performance management coaching manual for a work colleague who was delivering some transformational training on attitude and needed some \u2018method\u2019 to supplement the pure experiences he was generating. 120 pages later I\u2019d laid out the challenges of supporting \u2018underperformance\u2019 and \u2018celebrating success\u2019 as best I could.<\/p>\n These were my credentials for facilitating the first three cohorts who have so far gone through the P&Q challenge.<\/p>\n Of course none of this would have happened without funding. For that, the industry has to thank a couple of far sighted executives in the speech analytics industry. Jonathan Wax<\/a> and Jon Ezrine<\/a> set themselves the task of associating their brand Nexidia<\/a> with becoming long term educators around the transformational power of speech analytics. Or to be more accurate in a multi-channel world, let\u2019s call that\u00a0Interactive Analytics<\/a>.<\/p>\n They have funded the original research<\/a>, roadshows and three series of the P&Q Challenge to date. Additionally they invested in a number of programmes with strategic partners such as the Professional Planning Forum<\/a>, Call Centre Management Association<\/a> and South West Contact Centre Forum<\/a>\u00a0who collectively provide community membership of the UK contact centre industry.<\/p>\n Beyond this group, special thanks go to industry sites such callcentrehelper.com<\/a> and callcentre.co.uk<\/a> for providing airtime and editorial to spread the word.<\/p>\n From the very start, it has been an industry effort. Everyone pitched in with ideas either in the form of survey participants<\/a>, roadshow delegates who helped source the strategic planning framework or the many video interviews<\/a>\u00a0they also provided which helped provide credibility and insight.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n The idea of the P&Q challenge is to enable organisations get up to speed on how to use the \u2018Strategic Quality Framework\u2019 as a diagnostic and planning tool. The need for such a tool is based on the extremely dynamic world that Customer Services now operates in. Clearly many of the internal and external drivers of just a decade ago have given way to new ones. Yet there is little best practice on how to keep responding to these in an integrated way. This framework is one example of attempting to reach this new level of capability.<\/p>\nWho Is Involved?<\/h3>\n
How Does It Work?<\/h3>\n