Assessing the quality of internal customer service. Criteria for assessing the effectiveness of service Integrated quality management of customer service

KPIs are key performance indicators of a company or division. The number of KPIs may vary depending on the chosen strategy and is limited only by the imagination of the company manager. But there are KPIs that are “universal” for any service department.

How to choose performance indicators for a service?

For example, if service in a company is considered only as an auxiliary department, then as the main KPIs it makes sense to set indicators such as NPS (customer satisfaction index), response time to a customer request, time for a service engineer to arrive, time to resolve a customer’s problem with technical support and when leaving the place.

These KPIs, in turn, can be set and taken into account both on average and in more detail: for example, the response time of technical support should be different depending on the category of the client or depending on the client’s problem: the equipment is standing still, or is working in a limited mode without any options important for the client.

If we are simply talking about a request related to the normal operation of the equipment (for example, performing maintenance), then it is advisable to set other time standards for the response time of technical support. There is no point in setting the same KPIs for urgent and regular requests, because... this will significantly overload the service and require additional resources and costs.

What might KPIs look like in terms of response time to requests?

For example, you determine that in the event of a critical equipment failure that results in a shutdown of the client’s production, his application must be processed within 4 hours. It is clear that there are peak loads of the service, but on average for 70-80% of applications this requirement must be met. For requests related to normal operation, the processing time may be 3-4 days.

KPI for the time of departure of a service engineer in the event of an emergency stop of equipment can be set, for example, as 2 days in 70% of cases. At the same time, during normal operation (maintenance, customer training, etc.), the departure time can be 4-5 days or more - by agreement with the client.

KPI requirements are determined by the market and market standards. There is no point in setting minimum deadlines if competitors take weeks to solve the same problems. To get the “wow” effect, your KPIs should be 20-30% higher than competitors’ standards at a comparable price.

Of course, if the company does not count money for the service, then it is possible to recruit such a number of employees that will ensure 100% fulfillment of KPIs even during peak load periods. But at the same time, some employees will simply not be involved part of the time. This affects costs, your profit margin and, as a result, the price you can offer the customer and the competitiveness of the company as a whole.

KPI for service loading

To objectively assess the service load and the optimal costs that your strategy assumes (the highest quality, the lowest price, or average performance when targeting a specific market segment), you need to set a KPI for service load.

In foreign companies, this indicator is called Utilization and is defined as the ratio productive hours/available hours (productive hours/available hours). Available hours are the planned working hours for each employee, taking into account vacations, holidays and weekends. You can take it in a certain time period, for example, a month. Productive hours are time spent directly solving customer problems. Productive hours do not include education (training) and illness. You can independently evaluate the load of your service if you have statistics. It is best to take monthly statistics for 2-3 years, then you can assess the impact of seasonality on the operation of the service.

Is your service efficient?

But these data alone are not sufficient for one company. To understand how effectively your service works, you need to have an idea of the “normal” KPI values for the service departments of other companies. Some consider a load of 45-50% “normal”, others - 80-90%. Managers see only external manifestations: people are working, there is constant bustle in the service, which means everything is fine, no more loading is possible. Or vice versa, if everything is quiet and calm in the service, it means people are not working enough, which means we need to add more tasks to them and reduce the cost of salaries. These are extremely erroneous judgments. The fact is that there is productive time - aimed directly at solving current problems and unproductive time, which, in fact, is spent on preparatory work and is lost.

If service KPIs are set correctly, then work proceeds according to the conveyor principle, without fuss and noise, with a minimal percentage of unproductive time. If KPIs are set incorrectly (or are absent altogether), then “bottlenecks” and overloads periodically arise in the chain of interaction between people and departments.

This can be considered like a car moving in a traffic jam: someone braked, everyone else braked behind him. Then he accelerated - everyone else accelerated. The “ragged” operating mode leads to peak overloads. They often try to solve this problem by hiring additional employees. But, firstly, these are additional costs. Secondly, additional employees are often hired by those who ask, rather than by those who really need it.

In the end, nothing changes fundamentally, it’s just that in one department employees drink tea and cookies, and in another they run around like they’ve been stung, clutching at 10 projects at the same time and ultimately not having time anywhere (here you need to understand that during overloads, when people are forced to frequently switch from one task to another, up to 20% of the time is additionally spent simply remembering the initial and current data for each task, the so-called “learning curve”).

The problem is solved, first of all, by optimizing business processes and establishing “normal” KPIs for each functional unit - from an individual employee to a department and the company as a whole. But this is a topic for a separate article.

There are other KPIs in addition to Utilization that take into account employee overtime and weekend work. We will not dwell on them; this topic requires in-depth analysis. But it is important to understand that when planning any changes in a company, load KPIs are the most important indicators for planning the result that you want to achieve.

Other important KPIs for the service are turnover per employee, cost per hour, marginal profit rates, training costs, administration costs, etc. we will look at in other articles devoted to the development of first-class service as an important competitive advantage of the company.

Shows how satisfied the consumer was with the company's service. And determines readiness for further purchases. As a rule, it is measured through base surveys: “What is the likelihood that you would recommend us to a friend/colleague?” Responses are measured on a scale of 1 to 10.

Those who gave points 9-10: Promoters

They love it and will recommend the company to other potential buyers. As a rule, they make repeat purchases and represent the most valuable layer of the audience.

A score of 7-8 is typical for Neutrals

They don't say anything bad about you. But they will switch to another company if they offer them a better/cheaper service. They simply don’t like your product enough to recommend it.

And scores from 0-6 are given by Critics

Dissatisfied with your service, often leaving negative reviews.

The NPS index can be easily calculated using the following formula:

NPS = (% of promoters) - (% of critics)

A high NPS means you are significantly exceeding customer expectations. Poor customer service occurs when you don't meet their expectations.

2. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

This is a measure of how satisfied users are with a company's products and services. The principle works very simply - just do a survey: “How satisfied are you with the product and service” and ask to answer on a scale: from “Dissatisfied” to “Satisfied”. Post it on your website or app.

This method does not provide detailed answers, but points out the brand’s problem areas.

3. Customer Effort Score (CES)

The point is to find out how easy it was for the client to solve the problem and contact support. There are several options for wording questions within the CES assessment. The first is the question “How easy was it for you to solve the issue that arose?” And a proposal to rate from 1 to 5.

And the second technique is not a question, but a statement - “The company helped me resolve the issue,” then the answer can only be affirmative or negative. This method is considered more popular, since there are no discrepancies.

4. Customer Churn Rate

Churn rate is the percentage of customers who do not repurchase or cancel recurring services (such as a subscription)

5. First response time and average response processing time

First response time is the amount of time it takes for a customer to receive the first feedback on a support question. It is measured from the moment the client opened the chat window (called support) and received the first response from a company employee.

And the average processing time is how long it takes to interact from the beginning of the process to the end. The indicator includes time spent interacting with customers. By call, email, chat or other means, and the time between interactions.

Average handling time is usually measured by the average time it takes to fully resolve a customer's problem. Starting from the moment a customer first initiates an interaction. Until the moment when the problem was successfully resolved.

What to do after the team has collected quantitative indicators? Metrics give the company a complete picture of the quality of customer service.

How does quality of service lead to conversions and sales?

Start by testing using any of the above indicators. And then take measurements again after collecting quality data. Improvements in these metrics are ultimately linked to positive UX/CX changes.

It may not be worthwhile to measure all metrics at once. You need to find the one that matters most to your customers. And one from which you can extract practical ideas and use them right away. Drawing on customer metrics, combined with human insights, gives you a holistic view of the customer journey. And it will allow you to continually improve your CX.

To effectively manage the quality of customer service, in addition to the Mystery Shopping method, which allows you to evaluate service from the point of view of corporate standards, it is equally important to conduct a survey of real customers. This can be done in a variety of ways, such as using web surveys, mail surveys, or having interviewers interview customers on the sales floor. Recently, survey technology has been actively developing, which is based on the use of special push-button remote controls or terminals installed directly at the point of making a purchase or receiving a service. The main advantage of this technology is that the client does not have time to forget his feelings, so information about the client’s perception of the quality of service turns out to be very accurate. In addition, it is much easier to motivate a client to answer one question at the time of making a purchase than to answer a series of questions a day or two later, when the joy from the purchase (or, conversely, indignation) is no longer so bright. Unless, of course, this is a panel study for which the client receives a reward. Therefore, the representativeness of the sample, and, consequently, the reliability of the results, turns out to be much higher.

However, the technology for assessing the quality of service using push-button remote controls is not limited to installing “like-dislike” buttons and collecting relevant statistics. Firstly, most clients are not eager to click anything. If you do not take special measures to motivate clients, no more than 30% of clients will evaluate the quality of service, and the bias in a number of parameters (gender, education, income, character traits, etc.) compared to the general population will be very large. Consequently, the resulting statistics will not correspond to actual customer satisfaction. Secondly, if it is not possible to separate customer dissatisfaction caused by poor quality of service from dissatisfaction caused by factors beyond the control of staff (something broke, a long queue, etc.), then the resulting statistics cannot be linked to the motivation system , which will significantly narrow the scope of application of this technology.

Therefore, the technology for assessing the quality of service, in addition to technical means (buttons, software, video surveillance systems, etc.) must include a methodology for their application. This technique is described in. This article examines the practical application of this methodology, with a primary focus on Key Customer Service Quality Indicators (KCIs), in particular how these indicators are measured, how to monitor their validity and how they can be used.

Basic and additional indicators of customer service quality

The quality of customer service can be divided into three components:

The quality of the front line staff: friendliness, professionalism, appearance, communication style, etc.
Quality of office organization and quality of business processes:
Quality and cost of products and services.

Key indicators of service quality:

Indicator	Brief description
INK@Staff– Index of customer dissatisfaction with the quality of work of front line staff	Characterizes the quality of staff work through the eyes of clients. Used for personnel management based on KPIs. Calculated as the share of negative assessments and the share of silent people (with a correction factor) when answering the Key Question: “Are you satisfied with the quality of work ?»
INK@Office– Index of customer dissatisfaction with the organization of office work and the quality of business processes	Characterizes the quality of business processes and the attractiveness of the office through the eyes of clients. Used as one of the KPIs of internal business processes of the BSC (Balanced Scorecard System). It is calculated as the share of negative assessments and the share of silent people (with a correction factor) when answering the Key Question: “Did you like the environment and organization of our office?”
IEL– Customer Emotional Loyalty Index	Characterizes the emotional loyalty of customers. It is an indicator adapted for retail and service industries Net Promoter Score. Used as one of the KPIs of the client component of the BSC. It is calculated as the share of positive ratings minus the share of negative ratings and Silence (with a correction factor) when answering the Key Question: “Would you recommend our company to your friends?”

When assessing the quality of service using a customer survey, the representativeness of the sample from which the assessment is made and its length over time are critically important. Therefore, in addition to the service quality indicators themselves, additional (auxiliary) indicators are needed that characterize the representativeness of the sample and the representativeness of the time period.

Additional indicators:

In most cases, to control the representativeness of the sample, it is enough to use either the Exact Conversion Rate or the Visitor Reach Rate. The choice of a specific indicator depends on the front office business processes. For example, to monitor the quality of service for gas station customers, you should use Exact Conversion, and to monitor the quality of service for bank customers, you should use Visitor Coverage Rate. If, during the assessment period, the level of force majeure exceeds a certain threshold, then assessing the quality of customer service may not be appropriate. First, it makes sense to eliminate the causes of force majeure situations, and then repeat the Customer Service Quality Audit.

Architecture of the monitoring system

Main components of the service quality monitoring system:

Component	Comment
Three-button service quality assessment panel	Mandatory requirements: The ability to easily change the Key Question (“Are you satisfied with the quality of work client manager Elena Ivanova?”, “Did you like the environment and organization of our office?”, “Would you recommend our company to your friends?”). Possible answers to all questions: .
Seller Button	An additional button, logically connected to the corresponding push-button remote control, but installed on the seller's side. Mandatory requirements: Support two modes. By making a short press, the seller records the start of the survey. By making a long press, the seller reports force majeure circumstances that may affect the quality of customer service.
CCTV system	An existing video surveillance system can be used. Mandatory requirements: Archive support with remote access.
Consolidated database	Data storage
Report builder	Reports characterize service quality using basic and additional service quality indicators. Used by HR director, quality manager, etc.

Main roles:

Role	Functions performed
Salesman	Client motivation to evaluate service quality. Having finished serving the client, he asks him to evaluate the quality of service. Launching the service quality assessment process. Having finished servicing the client, he makes a short press of the Seller Button.
Expert	Selectively evaluates reliability surveys (a survey corresponds to a short press of the Seller’s Button and the following “window” for the client’s response, see below). Evaluates reliability of force majeure circumstances, excludes from the calculation of indicators unreliable surveys and surveys performed during force majeure circumstances.

Methodology for measuring service quality

The front line worker, finishing servicing the client, asks him to answer the Key Question and at the same time briefly presses the Salesperson Button. The following conditions must be met:
OPTIONAL. By briefly pressing the Seller Button, an audio or video file may be automatically played: “It is very important for us to know your opinion. Please [what needs to be done].” File playback can start automatically when a front line worker, working with a cash register or CRM system, performs a certain operation. The cash register or CRM system must be integrated with a service quality monitoring system.
The client has a certain time (Allowed Window) during which he can answer the Key Question by selecting one of the answer options on the keypad: Yes, No, Difficult to answer.
If the front line worker sees that a situation has arisen that may affect customer responses (force majeure), he presses the Seller Button and holds it down for at least 3 seconds. Long pressing of the Seller's Button qualifies as the occurrence of a force majeure circumstance.
The expert periodically checks the accuracy of all clicks made by both clients and front line workers. The check is performed by comparing the information about clicks contained in the consolidated database with the video recording stored in the video archive. If the Expert sees that some event is unreliable, he puts 0 in a special field opposite this event. All surveys in which the Expert set 0 are qualified as unreliable and excluded from the calculations.
At each time period, all clients are asked one Key Question. Changing Key Questions can be done randomly or on a regular basis. If the Key Question is accompanied by playing an audio or video file, it may change automatically at random. If Key Questions are formulated on a push-button panel (for example, on an acrylic insert), then they are changed manually. For example, in the first ten days of the month, clients are asked one Key Question, in the second - another, etc.

Methodology for calculating service quality indicators

Indicator	Key Question	Calculation formula
INK@Staff	Are you satisfied with the quality of work client manager Elena Ivanova?	Surveys that do not raise doubts among the expert are considered reliable. Negative answers (answers “No”) and silent ones recorded during the period of force majeure confirmed by an expert are NOT taken into account.
INK@Office	Did you like the environment and organization of our office?	*Number of valid polls / (Number of negative ratings + Correction Coefficient Number of Silent People)** Surveys that do not raise doubts among the expert are considered reliable. Negative answers (answers “No”) and Silents recorded during the period of force majeure confirmed by an expert are taken into account.
IEL	Would you recommend our company to your friends?	(Number of valid polls / Number of positive responses) - (Number of valid surveys / (Number of negative responses + Correction Coefficient * Number of Silent People)) Negative answers (answers “No”) and Silents recorded during the period of force majeure confirmed by an expert are taken into account.

The correction coefficient characterizes the proportion of Silent People who do not take part in the survey for reasons not related to dissatisfaction with the quality of service. To determine the exact value of the correction factor, it is necessary to conduct marketing research. If the exact value is not critical (for example, when it is not the absolute values that are important, but the dynamics), use the standard value 0.8 .

Application of indicators

INK@Staff

INK@Personnel can be used as the main KPI for front-line workers who are not involved in active sales. It is important that INC@Personnel can be linked to the staff motivation system without the risk of demotivating employees. This is due to the following reasons:

The value of the indicator is calculated based on a highly representative sample (all or almost all clients are involved), which ensures high representativeness of INK@Personnel;
All answers can be qualified by an independent expert, which ensures high reliability of INK@Personnel;
When calculating the indicator, customer dissatisfaction caused by reasons beyond the control of staff is not taken into account, which ensures high accuracy of INC@Personnel.

INK@Office

This indicator has at least two uses. The first application is one of the KPIs of internal front office business processes. The second application is to diagnose service quality bottlenecks. In the second case, the values of the INK@Office indicator must be compared with the values of the INK@Personnel indicator. When everything is good, the values of both indicators are better than the reference values (average for this type of business) and the INK@Office value is higher than the INK@Office value. If the values of these indicators are worse than the reference values and at the same time close, then the “bottleneck” of service quality is most likely staff. If the values of the INC@Office indicator are significantly higher than the INC@Personnel values, then the bottleneck of service quality is most likely the poor organization of office work (internal business processes).

Emotional Loyalty Index (ELI)

Like INC@Office, the Emotional Loyalty Index (ELI) has several uses:

Accurate Conversion, Visitor Reach Rate

Monitoring service quality is not an end in itself, but a tool for increasing sales. Therefore, the criterion for good quality of service, in addition to the values INK@Personnel, INK@Office, IEL, is the increase in the number of sales, characterized, in particular, by the value of the indicator Accurate Conversion. This indicator has two uses:

Another metric mentioned was Visitor Reach Rate. Like Exact Conversion, Visitor Reach Rate has two uses:

Comprehensive customer service quality management

Measuring Key Service Quality Indicators is an essential part of comprehensive customer service quality management.

Integrated service quality management is about monitoring service quality, diagnosing the causes of customer dissatisfaction, and taking corrective actions to eliminate the root causes of customer dissatisfaction (see figure).

First stage – service quality monitoring. At this stage, customer dissatisfaction is identified and its primary localization is determined. It could be:

dissatisfaction with the work of staff;
dissatisfaction with the quality of the office and the quality of business processes;
dissatisfaction with the quality of products and their cost.

To determine which of the three groups of reasons the dissatisfaction expressed by customers belongs to, the Loyalty Button service quality assessment system and the technology described above are used. Key Service Quality Indicators (KQI) that are used for this are INK@Personnel, INK@Office, IEL (see above).

Second stage – identifying the root causes of discontent. It is known, after calculations using CPCO, that dissatisfaction is associated with one of three groups of reasons. Now you need to find out what exactly the staff is not happy with, or what exactly is wrong with the quality and cost of the products.

If the problem is related to the work of personnel, use Mystery shopping method;
If the problem is related to the office and business processes or the quality and cost of products, use online surveys.

Customers who are dissatisfied with the quality of service should be used as respondents for online surveys. To do this, the Loyalty Button must be integrated with the CRM system or loyalty program questionnaires (in retail).

Third stage – correction, or elimination of causes of dissatisfaction. Once the causes of dissatisfaction have been identified, they must be eliminated. Methods and methods of elimination depend on the nature of the problem. This could be training for staff, changing the product line, reengineering business processes, etc.

After determining the reasons for customer dissatisfaction, corrective actions are taken. Their goal is to eliminate the root causes of discontent. The correctness of the diagnostics carried out and the effectiveness of corrective actions are checked at the stage of monitoring the quality of service. Thus, the control loop is closed. For more information about the methodology, see.

Let's ask ourselves honestly: does our company pay attention to the interaction of departments, to the coherence of the team, to the level of employee satisfaction? According to my observations, few organizations in our country are currently assessing the quality of service to internal customers. But this will soon become common practice, as more and more managers understand the clear relationship between the coherence of the team and the final result of the company.

Towards the implementation of a performance management system (Performance Management) we started at the end of 2010, a year ago we approved KPI's(key performance indicators) for directors of independent divisions of the bank’s central office, and the level of quality of service for internal clients in the Ukrainian office of Erste Bank began to be assessed for the first time only last year.

Today we have already entered the second assessment cycle, so we can rightfully say that the system for assessing the quality of service to internal clients has been successfully implemented. I’ll tell you about how we prepared and implemented this project.

The managers of Erste Bank set The HR service is faced with the task: “Develop support functions for directors KPI's related to the quality of service for internal customers." The idea was to include KPI's of these directors, an indicator of internal customer satisfaction with the work of their departments.

Thus, part of the manager’s annual bonus directly depends on this indicator. The only caveat is the weight of this indicator in the overall structure KPI's manager: for directors of supporting divisions (accounting, finance, personnel management, IT, etc.) it is significant - 20–25%, and for directors of business divisions - 10–15% (but also in KPI's!).

Problems

What difficulties did we encounter at the preparatory stage?

Firstly, complexity of the task. The fact is that the system for assessing the quality of service for internal customers could not be developed as an isolated project, “hanging in the air.” The assessment should have been linked 1) to performance management (which required specific KPI's) and 2) with the “Personnel Incentive Program”.

Secondly, difficulty in defining key performance indicators for supporting units.

Thirdly, the very “intangibility” of services, natural subjectivity in the perception of service quality. These circumstances made it difficult to “digitize” this indicator. We understood: in order for the assessment results to truly influence the level of remuneration, the assessment tool must be effective (that is, provide valid, objective information for making management decisions), and at the same time, simple and understandable for employees.

Fourth, the difficulty of taking into account the “human factor” - the degree of “friendliness” of the relationships that have developed between colleagues (divisions).

Fifthly, lack of funding. There was no separate budget allocated for this project at all, so we could not attract external consultants; we had to rely only on internal resources.

Solutions

As it turned out in the end, the lack of a budget did not hinder us: the entire project - from the idea to the interpretation of the results obtained - was carried out independently by employees of the HR department. An HR specialist who oversees the area became responsible for the implementation of the assessment Performance Management.

The HR service has developed all components of the project:

concept and connection with other HR processes;
tools (electronic questionnaire), methodological materials and methods for analyzing assessment results;
communication support;
evaluation criteria;
assessment procedures and necessary documentary support (orders, assessment regulations, etc.);
administration of the assessment process (graphs, data collection and processing);
analysis of the results obtained and preparation of reports.

Project goals and objectives we defined as follows:

assess the level of cooperation between different departments;
assess the level of satisfaction of internal customers;
identify problem areas, as well as positive aspects in communication processes;
prepare recommendations for bank and department managers;
develop activities to motivate employees.

The original idea was to evaluate only the provision of support services to specific units. For example, if the operations department serves the branches - which means that the branch employees must evaluate the work of the “operators”. But then we came to the conclusion that we actually do not have isolated “service providers” and “consumers” - within the bank, each department/department/management is both a consumer and a producer of services. For example, the employees of the retail department were confident that since they brought income to the bank, then all other departments should serve them - in fact, without receiving anything in return. In reality, of course, this is not true: many departments receive information from them, communicate, etc.

Interaction and collaboration is a two-way process, not a one-way process. All divisions of the bank work for a common result - accordingly, the quality of communications and interaction between divisions should be mutually assessed. Therefore we decided:

1) all regional divisions evaluate the work of all divisions of the central office in providing services to them;

2) all divisions of the central office evaluate each other’s work, since they constantly interact and are both suppliers and consumers of services.

The simplicity of Erste Bank's organizational structure made our work much easier. We have:

central office in Kyiv, where all support services are concentrated;
network of regional divisions (branches and corporate centers).

During the assessment, we also included the identification of the best employees in the field of internal customer service, who are role models. Each of the evaluation participants can cast their vote for their colleagues (for a maximum of five people).

Based on the results of the assessment of internal customer service, the following are selected:

employees who received the majority of votes (three people);
the central office division that received the highest score.

At the end of the year, all “excellent students” are rewarded financially and receive public recognition of their merits. The most important thing is that now we can talk about recognizing and rewarding the best objectively - based on specific numbers.

Tools

Talented employees of the HR department have developed all the tools necessary for assessment based on the familiar program Excel:

1) assessment questionnaire;
2) instructions for filling out the questionnaire;
3) presentation of the program’s work.

To develop criteria for assessing the success of cooperation between divisions in the bank, we assembled a working group that included the most active specialists from different divisions. After much discussion, ten criteria were selected and combined into three groups ( table).

Table Evaluation criteria

I. Attitude	Providing correct and understandable answers to questions/queries
	Willingness to take responsibility for the solution and information provided
	Support and maintenance of the task being performed
II. Execution	Efficiency and timely resolution of problems
	Fulfillment of undertaken obligations
	Help in developing solutions
III. Communications	Showing respect in collaboration
	Desire and willingness to help
	Timely information about innovations and changes
	Availability for meetings, telephone conversations and email correspondence

To evaluate the criteria, a scale of 1–10 points was used:

10 points - significantly exceeds expectations;
9 - exceeds expectations;
7–8 - meets expectations;
5–6 - partially meets expectations;
1–4 - does not meet expectations.

The same scale is used at Erst Bank in the employee performance management system and the 360° assessment of managers, so our people know it well.

All prepared materials were submitted for discussion to the bank’s board and department directors. After agreeing on the issues that arose with management, we launched the assessment.

Conducting an assessment

How is the assessment procedure organized? Each employee (voluntarily and anonymously - this is important) fills out a questionnaire posted on the corporate training portal, to which everyone has access.

The questionnaire was developed in the program Excel, to fill it out you need to complete four steps:

Identification (indicate in which department the person works).
Evaluating your unit according to the proposed criteria ( rice. 1 )
Assessment of all departments with which the employee frequently interacts.
Voting (optional) for employees who work best with their internal customers ( rice. 2 ).

Rice. 1. Assess your unit

To make it easier to work with the form, hints appear when opening a file and while filling out fields.

When employees opened the questionnaire, they saw a special message that further clarified the purpose of the assessment.

Good afternoon, dear colleagues!

Without a high level of internal service, it is almost impossible to provide quality customer service and achieve business goals. This survey is conducted to ensure that each employee has the opportunity to express their opinion on the quality of service within the bank.

In the questionnaire you will be able to evaluate:

1) your department (this is the first thing you will evaluate);
2) all divisions of the central office with which you cooperate (you yourself choose the divisions for assessment).

You will also be able to highlight five central office employees whom you consider an example for others, a model of professionalism and communication.

If you have any questions while completing the application, please refer to the instructions or call Human Resources.

When evaluating departments, employees are given the opportunity to write comments on the evaluations.

Upon completion of work with the questionnaire, all data is automatically collected into a single database. Data processing is carried out in the program Excel, which allows you to summarize the results both for individual departments and for the company as a whole, as well as build visual graphs and diagrams.

We understood that in such a sensitive area as assessment, communication is of the utmost importance - at the preparatory stage, throughout the entire assessment process and after summing up the results. That is why we previously agreed with all the directors of the areas on the criteria and rating scale, and held special meetings with employees, where we explained in detail the meaning of each criterion so that everyone understood what we were talking about. Why was this important? The fact is that even such simple concepts as “respect”, “desire to help”, “fulfillment of obligations” are perceived differently by people. Therefore, it was necessary to first agree on definitions and how to ensure the objectivity of the assessments.

In addition, corporate communication resources - an internal Internet portal and a corporate publication - were actively used to inform employees about the assessment of internal customer satisfaction.

As a result, by the beginning of the assessment, people were well informed: they knew about the launch and testing of the tool, about the timing and progress of the assessment. Managers received information about how engaged employees were and how actively they filled out questionnaires. After the completion of the project, we, of course, thanked everyone who filled out the questionnaires, since thanks to their participation, the HR service received the most important material for analysis.

Results

In order to obtain assessment results that truly reflect the situation, it was necessary to involve as many employees as possible in the process (preferably 100%). We managed to reach 64% of the target audience, which is a very good result for the first time.

I should note that almost simultaneously (within three months) our bank carried out many HR projects (for example, assessing employee engagement at the Erste Group, assessment using the “360°” method and others), so people were very busy - literally inundated with surveys. Nevertheless, the project to assess the satisfaction of internal customers was very important for us (and it was carried out for the first time), we “PR”ed it in every possible way. For the period when people had such a load, activity over 50% is a very good indicator.

We chose the time for the assessment so that we could collect all the data by the end of the year, since we wanted to prepare the work plan of the HR service for the next year taking into account the analysis of the results obtained. In addition, at the beginning of 2012 we already began assessing the implementation KPI's heads of departments , and they needed data on satisfaction with the work of their departments from internal customers.

By December last year, we prepared all the reports:

A complete report on the entire bank for the board.
Reports for department directors (general results for the bank as a whole and detailed analysis for the division; comments from employees; list of the best employees).
Reports for individual departments/departments (at the request of managers).

In addition, HR specialists prepared recommendations for managers (on further actions within the bank as a whole and for individual divisions), and also assisted them in interpreting the data received and conducting communications with teams of individual divisions.

As a result, the average level of quality of service for internal customers was 7.09 points, which corresponds to our expectations.

Detailed reports for managers included graphs showing the place of their departments in the overall ranking ( rice. 3).

Having studied detailed information on the distribution of ratings between departments according to various criteria, we were able to clearly highlight the strengths and weaknesses in relationships with colleagues both at the level of each department and throughout the bank as a whole.

Summary matrix of average ratings for all departments - assessing and assessed ( rice. 4) helped us identify problem areas in communications between departments, as well as identify current or potential conflicts.

Rice. 4. Summary matrix of average ratings

This data was only available to board members. After analyzing the situation, top managers held individual conversations with their subordinates (department directors) and thought through actions to improve the situation.

Comments from employees were very helpful in understanding the essence of the conflicts: thanks to them, we saw what is usually not revealed to the eyes of an “outsider.” In addition, the comments pointed out problems in the processes and made us look at many things differently.

Although most assessments fall within the acceptable “corridor” of six to eight points, people used the entire scale (there were also minimal ones - one or two points). Survey participants had the opportunity to give both the lowest and highest ratings - without comment. By the way, starting this year we decided to make a change - if an employee gives extremely low or high ratings, he will be required to comment on why he evaluates the department that way.

Discussion of analytical materials based on the results of the assessment took place at all levels of management ( rice. 5).

Rice. 5. Actions on the part of managers

After reviewing the results at the Board meeting, managers (department directors) held meetings with their subordinates - heads of departments and departments, and they, in turn, with specialists at all levels.

Several issues were resolved at the meetings:

Providing feedback.
Discussion of strengths/weaknesses and problem areas.
Developing an action plan to improve the quality of service to internal customers.
Appointment of those responsible for the implementation of activities and approval of deadlines.

Conclusions

We strived to ensure that the tool allowed not only to measure the efficiency of departments, but also to analyze the pros/cons of internal communications. Our expectations regarding the evaluation system were met.

Benefits for managers:

the data obtained served as the basis for making management decisions;
managers began to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of their departments. At the same time, each manager saw how his department was evaluated by his own subordinates, as well as by employees of other departments;

"If you don't count money, you don't have it." If you don’t measure efficiency, there is a risk of not keeping track of your business and sliding downward. But what to do when there is a lot of data?
Selecting the right key performance indicators (KPI's) is the first step to dramatically increasing productivity.
For each business, such indicators are individual. Here we will tell you how to choose the right ones.

Choose metrics that align with your business goals

Key performance indicators are things that can be calculated and used to evaluate results. For example, increasing sales, return on investment in marketing activities (ROI) or improving customer service.
Mark Hayes, Shopify's Director of Communications, has a great post about this " 32 Key Performance Indicators in E-Commerce". In this post, Mark offers the following examples of goals and corresponding performance indicators in e-commerce:

Goal #1:

Increase sales by 10% in the next quarter.
Key performance indicators: daily turnover, conversion and website traffic.

Goal #2:

Increase conversion by 2% next year.
Key performance indicators: conversion, number of purchase refusals at the checkout stage (put in cart, but not purchased), delivery costs, competitive prices.

Goal #3:

Increase website traffic by 20% next year.
Key performance indicators: website traffic, traffic sources, cost per click, number of posts on social networks, bounce rates.

Goal #4:

Reduce the number of calls to the service line by 50% over the next 6 months.
Key performance indicators: satisfaction with the quality of service, identifying the pages that the user visits immediately before calling, the action that leads to a call to the service line.

As you can see, each of the key metrics identified in these four examples correlates with the main goal.
What are your company's goals? Can you identify areas that need improvement or optimization? What are your priorities for your management team?

Focus on a few key metrics rather than tracking dozens of values

You can measure any metrics in detail: the number of views and clicks, conversion percentage, number of emails sent and opened, and much more. There's no point in getting carried away. Instead of tracking dozens of different indicators, it would be better to focus on a few key ones.
Based on Shopify's experience, the optimal number of key indicators for a company varies from 4 to 10.

Determine the stage of development of your company

Based on what stage of development your company is currently at, some indicators will be more important.
For a startup, business viability indicators are a priority. For companies that have been on the market for several years, the cost of attracting a customer and their lifetime value (LTV) are important.

If you are just entering the market with a product, your key indicators are:

Qualitative feedback
Customer survey
Recognition
Flexibility

We've moved to a new level - check the product's compliance with the market. Your key performance indicators:

Updating the client base
Customer churn

And finally, the third stage. Business is developing. We change the indicators to:

Average order value
Customer life cycle
Number of attracted clients

Define lagging and leading indicators

The difference between lagging and leading indicators is that the former shows what you have already achieved, while the latter predicts future achievements. Leading indicators are no better or worse than lagging indicators, and vice versa. You just have to understand the differences between them.

Lagging indicators reflect the results of your actions over the past period: for example, the number of sales last month, the number of new clients, or the number of hours spent on a certain task.
Leading indicators, in turn, make it possible to quickly manage the situation and demonstrate progress in achieving set goals. Leading indicators include forecast indicators: website traffic, conversion, the ability to expand the age limits of the target audience and tracking the effectiveness of sales managers.

Traditionally, most companies focus on lagging indicators because they are easier to measure since the period is already closed. For example, it is very easy to report on the number of customers acquired in the last quarter.
Leading indicators are the driving force of business because they can help you predict whether you will be able to achieve your goals. If you can identify which leading indicators will influence the future of your company, you can achieve success much faster.

Accept that key metrics will not be the same for every industry and business model.

The key metrics you define for your company depend on your business model and the industry in which you operate. For example, the key metrics for a company selling B2B software will likely be the number of new customers and churn rate of existing customers, while for a company selling bricks and mortar, these metrics will be sales per square meter and average check.

Here are some examples of key indicators for companies operating in different fields:

Professional Services

Number of bookings
Using the service
Lag behind plan
Lost profit
Cost of employee work

SaaS

Monthly income from repeat customers
Customer churn
Customer acquisition cost
Average revenue per repeat customer
Customer Lifetime Cost (LTV)

Internet media and publishing houses

Unique visitors
Number of views
Share price
Increasing referral traffic through social networks
Time spent on the site

Retail

Investments
Customer satisfaction level
Sales per square meter
Average bill
Product turnover

While you'll likely want to rely on industry averages, it's more important to choose the ones that are right for your company and its goals.

Main points:

Make sure your key indicators measure the company's progress towards achieving its goals
Less is more: identify 4 to 10 key indicators and focus on them
Determine the stage of development of your company: understanding the importance of certain indicators can take your company to the next level faster and more efficiently
Identify lagging and leading indicators: it is very important to understand what has happened to the company previously and what your achievements are towards the goal
Measure your key metrics against industry averages, but remember that your own key metrics should be appropriate for your company and the economic situation it faces.