From the course: Customer Service: Knowledge Management

Understanding activities and outcomes

From the course: Customer Service: Knowledge Management

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Understanding activities and outcomes

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- Knowledge in customer service metrics can seem confusing but the picture comes into clear focus when we do two things, understand what we'll do with the measures and differentiate between activity measures and outcome measures. First, let's consider what we'll do with the measure, why we're measuring it. Sometimes, we measure customer retention or cost savings to show how we're helping our customers and the business. These measures help executives make strategic decisions. Also, we measure how many articles we're creating or reusing to see if our KCS program needs an adjustment. These measures help program managers keep KCS on track. Additionally, we measure article quality and agent productivity to assess individual or team performance. These measures help managers recognize good performance and find coaching opportunities. Now, let's differentiate between activities and outcomes, between the things we do and the things we want. Most of what we measure are activities, things we do. How much time are agents in ready status? Do they show up to work on time? How many articles do they create and reuse? These are activities and they're within each individual's control. These are easy to measure but there's a catch. It's easy to cheat to get a good score. If you tell an agent to get off the phone in 17 minutes, they will, but you may not like the way they end their calls. If you ask an agent to write three articles per week, they will, and I will guarantee that you'll get a stack of junk articles every Friday afternoon. The key thing we've learned about activities is track them and trend them, but don't assign goals. Outcomes are the business results we need to achieve, like retention or lower cost. Some are all about the customer, satisfaction, reduced customer effort, or loyalty. Some are focused on quality. Do put goals on outcomes. Your organization may have been assigned goals already. Knowing why you're measuring something gives the right people the information they need to do their jobs. Knowing if a measure is an activity or an outcome makes sure you don't set potentially harmful goals on activities. Together, these insights make measures effective.

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