Board Template

As previously mentioned, working in a call center is like to going to school. And in a typical school scenario, you are being graded for each of the subject you are enrolled in. Those grades are reflected on your metrics. There are different types of metrics depending on the type of account you are in and the line of business that that type of account is supporting in.

If in a university setting, you are being graded based on prelim, midterm or finals, in a call center, you are being graded on a weekly basis. Those weekly figures are then being average on a monthly basis. And the average of all those figures from all the agent on the account constitute the site performance and site performance is determined by its rank among other vendors. Those vendors could be in the United States, India, South Africa or somewhere else thus I am creating this blog because one of the thing that I would like to achieve here is to put “Philippine–based” call centers to occupy the upper 10% of vendor ranking in terms of performance.

But how would you be able to know as an individual as to where you are right now and where you are going. That is the purpose then of “Metrics Board.” The metrics board is intended to show you your performance on a weekly basis so that you will be able to work on your deficiency before the end of a fiscal month. The fiscal month is the start and end date by which you are going to be evaluated. In some call center, fiscal month would start at the beginning of the month while in others based on the cut–off date for salary computation to synchronize with attrition because attrition in return is part of the scorecard of Team Leaders. Because most agent if they would like to leave the company would just get their last salary and leave. It is because there are “miser” call center wherein if you file for resignation with a 30–day notice, the next salary you will receive would already be your last pay check thus to counteract that scenario, most agents will just get the final pay then file for resignation later on after they already landed to a new job. That is one of the primary reason why agents go on AWOL. Can they blame the agent if the agent just want to survive?

In knowing where you are right now and where you are going, you need to know also as to what is the minimum requirement for you to achieve a specific goal and how much percentage of that goal would impact your overall performance. In most of the call center I’ve been with the biggest mistake they are doing is not divulging as to what the goal of a specific metric is and what the percentage of that metric is. By knowing this two aspect of metric system, the agent would be able to know if they are far behind the metric or if they are already exceeding expectation. The figures on the metrics board are manually written and is oftentimes color coded. It is green if you are within the goal and red if you are outside the goal.

Example below are two board template as to how metrics has to be presented to an agent. Just like in advertising, you need to follow the KISS (Keep it simple, stupid!) principle to present it. They should be able to interpret the result in a matter of 30 second.

The Horizontal Template

This is the ideal template to follow because it is very comprehensive. The disadvantage of this template is if you have more than 5 metrics to tabulate, the typical 1.5 x 1 meter width board provided per team will not be able to accommodate all those metrics thus you will be compelled to just tabulate the metric that would create greater impact to performance.

AS OF:	Week - To - Date					Month - To - Date
29-May	AHT	QA	RPC	Attendance	Adherence	AHT	QA	RPC	Attendance	Adherence
Goal	500 secs	85%	$30	90%	90%	500 secs	85%	$30	90%	90%
%Metrics	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%
Juan	250	65	$42	95	100	475	75	$40	95	100
Pedro	700	89	$28	90	100	480	70	$30	90	100
Maria	638	85	$27	90	100	520	85	$31	90	100
Lisa	472	80	$32	100	100	600	90	$31	95	100
Tina	897	88	$39	90	100	498	92	$28	100	100
Eric	488	98	$31	90	100	517	88	$29	100	100
Meg	698	87	$33	89	100	399	77	$27	100	100
Joy	501	82	$35	90	90	777	84	$33	90	95
John	398	90	$22	88	90	499	94	$43	90	95
Kris	476	85	$40	100	100	512	98	$41	100	100
Jenny	398	88	$34	88	100	376	89	$42	100	100
Team Average	537	85	$33	91	98	513	86	$34	95	99

The Vertical Template

The vertical template has the advantage of accommodating more than 5 metrics parameter however when it comes to “quick” comprehensibility, it doesn’t meet that criteria since you need to have legend to be able to know as to which one is the “week to date” and which is the “month to date.” The disadvantage of this template is if there are more than 10 agents per team it wouldn’t be able to accommodate all of them because most white board being issued per team is the standard 1.5 x 1 meter width board.

	AHT	QA	RPC	Attendance	Adherence
Goal	500 secs	85%	$30	90%	90%
%Metric	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%
Juan	250	65	42	95	100
	475	75	40	95	100
Pedro	700	89	28	90	100
	480	70	30	90	100
Maria	638	85	27	90	100
	520	85	31	90	100
Lisa	472	80	32	100	100
	600	90	31	95	100
Tina	897	88	39	90	100
	498	92	28	100	100
Eric	488	98	31	90	100
	517	88	29	100	100
Meg	698	87	33	89	100
	399	77	27	100	100
Joy	501	82	35	90	90
	777	84	33	90	95
John	398	90	22	88	90
	499	94	43	90	95
Kris	476	85	40	100	100
	512	98	41	100	100
Jenny	398	88	34	88	100
	376	89	42	100	100
Team Average	537	85	33	91	98
	513	86	34	95	99