Today’s guest blog post is by Susan Palur, a Call Center Team Leader in charge of our discerning scoring department.
“A combination of training, mystery shopping and measurement all contribute to our client’s success.” – Signature Worldwide
In our clients’ quest to provide legendary customer service to their clients, scoring is their measurement piece, their evidence of excellence and areas of opportunity.
It is a quiet department in the Call Center. People sitting at their desk, headphones on, mind focused and ears perked for the slightest hint of the use of the magic formula. Knowing that each call can and will be different; the scorer is sure to read any customized scoring instructions, two, maybe three times to ensure their own scoring accuracy. Each scorer is held to a very high accuracy standard. They are eager to meet the internal quality assurance error rate of 1.5% or below. That equates to only 1 error per 100 calls!
Most people do not know that the scorer of a call is not the same person that makes the shopping call. It is important to have a different set of ears to determine the use of the Magic Formula in a shop call. The scorer can concentrate on what the client is saying and not have to split their focus between shopping and scoring.
To fill a Scoring position, we look for someone that is naturally curious, asks a lot of questions, wonders why and is driven to be accurate. During a scorer’s training they must learn to interpret the “guidelines” to measure each skill specific to a client. They are required to listen to and score at least 100 calls per industry and then go over each call with a Call Center Team Leader before they ever listen to an actual client call. At which time they receive feedback and coaching on their performance. One time I asked someone to describe scoring using a color and they said to me, “Ah, it’s gotta be black and white”. And I said to them “It’s really more gray then black and white and the gray is always changing shades”.
We train our clients to make each call a personalized conversation, using words that they feel good about and comfortable using. Therefore; a Signature Scorer must listen to the flow of each conversation, the tone of the voices, the intent behind each question asked and each answer given. Each call has individual instructions that a scorer must follow to focus on the clients results and ensure accuracy. We work closely with each client to make sure the scoring guidelines for their calls match their business requirements.
Scoring is after all a measurement tool, a road map for our clients to reinforce that they are doing the right things, the right way on their quest to providing Legendary Customer Service.