Should managers and executives share customer service metrics with customer service staff?
The simple answer here is YES. The complex answer is YES, too.
There is a very strong tendency for senior executives to keep customer metrics close to vest, perhaps sharing them with some of the managers that report to them, but certainly NOT with customer representatives and those that actually interact with customers.
Sharing Metrics Builds Focus On The Customer
Metrics shared regularly, perhaps once a month, or even weekly send a message to all staff about what’s important. They say that what gets measured gets done, but it’s also true that what gets disclosed MUST be important.
Staff will “get” that what you share; customer wait time, customer satisfaction numbers, whatever, that these things are important, and also that they will be held accountable as a group, or individuals for improvement.
Sharing Opens The Door For Solutions and Problem Solving
Metrics can stimulate the thinking of staff to actually improve those metrics, and that’s critical since the solutions to many customer related problems are probably obvious to many customer service facing staff.
They do know. Asking them for suggestions about how to go about improving specific metrics will give you solutions a bunch of managers could never come up with.
For Senior Executives About Sharing Data
Senior executives spend little time talking with and to both customers and staff, but do their work through the managers that report to them.
If you are in that situation, make managers accountable for communicating customer metrics, and for having staff generate suggestions for improvement.
Choose a set of the most important metrics, and focus on them.
