5 Strategies to Improve Your Customer Service Scorecard (+Free Template)

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The oldest customer complaint dates back to 3,800 years ago. It was a case of a wrong grade of copper being delivered to a Sumerian merchant. The first customer service team dates back to the 1760s. More than two centuries later, quality assurance and customer support appear at the forefront of any business success.

Globe Newswire indicates that the global contact center software market will reach $165 billion by 2030. It means that companies working with performance management and customer services have an increasing demand to meet. How do they do that? A customer service scorecard is an integral part of the answer.

Let's find out more about the nature of customer service scorecards, investigate what quality assurance is all about, and explore five distinct ways to deliver an effective customer service scorecard. To leave you with something tangible and not just valuable insights, the free customer service scorecard template comes with this piece.

What are customer service scorecards?

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Forbes argues customer service is the cornerstone of a company's success. Harvard Business Review adds excellent customer service to be the primary factor for business growth. Simply put, there is enough evidence offered by credible and well-recognized sources suggesting that customer satisfaction translates into business prospering.

A customer service scorecard can be regarded as a checklist a Quality Assurance (QA) manager or a team lead adopts as an evaluation system. It helps measure how effective contact center agents were in the context of customer interactions. When putting the performance data of the scorecards together, companies can: 

• fill learning gaps

• redefine compliance standards

• create improvement plans

• solve problems

• change quality criteria

• align customer service with business goals

Quality criteria used within scorecard templates create an opportunity to gather feedback. In other words, quality criteria are at the heart of any given quality monitoring scorecard. They show whether agents under review meet the benchmarks your customer service needs to succeed.

Notably, good call center analytics is a must when monitoring contact center agent performance. You can have data analysts on the payroll. An easier and more cost-efficient way is to hire a third-party vendor to do the job.

Why do you need a quality assurance scorecard?

As we have mentioned above, customer service scorecards are tools to evaluate call center agents’ performance and determine the aspects that need changing. In all of that, customer experience is at the core. Forbes argues a well-designed quality assurance scorecard is a direct way to boost customer engagement.

Diving deeper into what a customer service scorecard brings to the table for customer support, consider the following:

• Accountability. Knowing the ins and outs of your company boosts transparency and accountability. You see what processes lag behind, and who should be responsible for that.

• Collaboration. Customer service scorecards help you understand end-to-end processes within the customer support team. You can use the insights to correct processes and identify areas that need a higher degree of collaboration with agents.

• Planning. Customer service scorecards grant accurate information.  This helps identify strengths through customer experience and agent feedback. A quality scorecard is a great way toward handling all planning procedures, namely because you see processes from various perspectives.

These benefits have a positive impact on customer experience, call center agents productivity, and business success in general. Most importantly, they are all connected. 

Microsoft indicates that 96% of consumers perceive customer service as the fundamental factor in choosing a particular brand. Yet, to reap the aforementioned fruits, you need to know how to build a customer service scorecard.

How to build a customer service scorecard?

A quality scorecard doesn't appear from thin air. The first step is to establish clear goals and objectives to understand what you pursue with a quality assessment. The best scorecards mirror the objectives of a department or an entire company.

The second step is to choose a proper tool. In such a case, you have two options, either create a spreadsheet from scratch or use software with pre-designed templates included. Spreadsheets are a cheaper option. However, they are created manually and don't work with complex data and many variables.

Finally, choose a particular quality monitoring scorecard template with questions relating to a particular channel. If your contact center works with phone calls, use the template linked to this channel. If your customer support teams work through chats, the different set of questions should be involved. In general, contact center KPIs like Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) as starting points for all channels.

In addition, there are certain areas you need to monitor through a selected template. It would be best to include these domains:

• Processes

• Needs analysis

• Customer experience

• Product competencies

• Training

• Outcomes

These are key areas you can work around in your scorecard. Keeping all the insights above, you receive an image of what a general customer service scorecard template looks like. However, there are certain things you can do to improve the quality assurance scorecard and take your agent performance assessment to a whole another level.

How to improve customer service scorecards?

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Scorecards can be improved in several simple steps. While there is evidence digitization improves customer experience, you don't need to reinvent the wheel to make customer service scorecards better. You just need to follow the further points of advice.

Keep customer service scorecard simple

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Less is more. It is safe to say that people don't like complicated processes in general. Keep your scorecards simple and straightforward. People often buy-in an idea they can see and understand clearly. There is an entire Simplicity Index annually evaluating the ability of companies to offer the least complicated customer experiences. Simple scorecard rewards customer service.

PR Newswire shows that simplicity makes a difference. About 64% of customers recommend a particular brand because of a simple experience. What is more, about 55% of consumers are ready to pay more for less complicated experiences. Similarly, simplicity works for customer service scorecards. Use simple questions and put forward well-defined goals without unnecessary complications involved.

Choose focus KPIs to evaluate

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Key performance indicators (KPIs) are variables showing how effective your call center and its agents are. When put together, either achieving or lagging behind on KPIs shows the overall quality of customer service. 

There can be hundreds of KPIs to evaluate. At this point, to improve customer service scorecards, choose several most important for your business needs and build a scorecard around them.

Platforms like Ender Turing help visualize real-time agent performance based on pre-selected KPIs. Often, companies operating in the performance management sector focus on these KPIs:

• Average Time in Queue. It shows whether an agent serves customers promptly.

• Average Handle Time (AHT). It shows how well an agent handled the customer issue/concern.

• Average Abandonment Rate. It shows how fast a customer severs the connection with the call center team.

• First Call Resolution (FCR). It shows how many calls and messages are required to solve customer issues/concerns.

• CSAT. It shows general customer satisfaction with the customer service experience.

• NPS. It measures the loyalty a customer illustrates before and after a call center interaction.

Focus on these KPIs, and you will have a comprehensive picture on the effectiveness of your agents and contact center in general. These make scorecards more effective.

Invest in agent training to boost customer satisfaction

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Forbes presents five particular skills for call center agents to learn in order to offer the best service possible. In such a case, you can use a customer service scorecard and monitor the outcomes of agent training and coaching. It helps close existing knowledge base gaps, develop new soft skills, and perfect customer service. 

There are platforms offering fast and effective agent coaching and training. You can use these tools to take agent training to another level.

Investing in agent training both have a positive effect on customer satisfaction, and it can be monitored through the scope of a scorecard. Essentially, you can make a quality scorecard better by including the factor of agent training. There are several training-related questions to include in a next-level scorecard:

• Was the training useful?

• Did the coaching help with achieving professional goals?

• Has the training boosted your soft skills?

• Do you show better performance after the training?

These questions help determine whether the investment in agent training presented the expected outcomes. The factor of training improves the customer experience and makes your scorecard better. 

Use automation to reduce agent workload

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The American Psychological Association offers evidence showing that 53% of employees engaged in customer interaction report high rates of fatigue. What is more, about 44% report cognitive weariness, and 40% report emotional exhaustion. 

In other words, working in customer service is hard and can take a toll on your physical, psychological, and emotional well-being. Respectively, automation is the tool that can help deal with that.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) proved to improve customer experience. What is more, it helps automate repetitive tasks and reduce agent burnout and fatigue. Automation helps reduce the pressure of time-intensive tasks and allows call center agents to focus on more important goals.

In such a case, to improve a customer service scorecard, include the questions linked to the factor of automation. Determine how bad agents need it and whether its adoption will bring the expected results. 

Prioritize certain questions

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There are many questions you can have in your customer service scorecard template. The truth is, having too many questions creates challenges to the rule of simplicity. In turn, having too few questions won't make the assessment accurate. 

As a solution to this dilemma, you should prioritize particular questions, the ones aligning to your objectives and what you want to evaluate in the first place. Without further ado, we advise focusing on areas like customer focus, soft skills, agent process adherence, clarity, and professional conduct. These domains are vital for call center performance and help test it via scorecards.

Speaking in terms of particular questions to prioritize, consider the following:

• Did the first contact resolution be offered when possible?

• Did the agent show empathy in the context of the customer's concern/distress?

• Did the agent offer a follow-up on request?

• Did the agent use clear and concise responses?

• Did the agent use an unprofessional tone/language?

These questions give you a hint on what the prioritization process looks like. Select the domains you intend to explore in detail and insert questions linked to these areas into your scorecard template. 

Customer service scorecard template

Name:

Date:

Time:

Evaluator:

Channel:

Rely on technology

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Relying on technologies and pursuing innovation is as important as having a customer support service. New tech emerges constantly. It offers automation, boosts performance, and makes the customer experience as perfect as ever before. There are various companies ready to serve their clients by enabling the best of what technologies can bring to customer support. Ender Turing is one of them.

It develops a Machine Learning (ML) based speech recognition software augmenting call center agents. It changes the rules of the game by allowing a cutting-edge tool for analyzing customer interactions while aiding sales and customer care.

The platform is available in 24 languages and provides 24/7 support. Ender Turing works with different channels, including calls, chats, and video meetings. The software proved to be effective due to these underlying technologies:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• Machine Learning (ML)

• Natural Language Processing (NLP)

• Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR)

Nothing speaks better of the platform's success than its tangible deliverables with its customer service scorecards. Ender Turing grants 20x faster call and conversation review rates. It also enables 2.5x faster KPIs. Finally, as a client, you receive 100% calls covered with quality assurance. What is more, the platform is easy-to-use, entails an intuitive interface, and includes a support team ready to deal with any concerns you might have. 

Conclusion

Considering all the above, a customer service scorecard is an important tool standing at the forefront of a call center's success. It allows measuring numerous factors determining agent performance and customer experience. While general customer service scorecard templates include a basic set of inquiries, there are ways to improve the tool.

 Make sure your scorecard is simple, has a clear focus on KPIs, includes the aspect of agent training, mentions automation, and prioritizes questions aligning with pre-set objectives. With these insights in mind, there is a high chance to create a perfect scorecard.

What is more, always keep in mind that there are third parties ready to help you with a scorecard-building process. Companies like Ender Turing have years of experience in the segment. It means you get a top-quality product that will perform. Don't hesitate, come onboard right away!

FAQ

What is a customer service scorecard?

A customer service scorecard, also known as a quality assurance scorecard, is a distinct assessment system directed at measuring the contact center’s performance within every step of customer interaction.

How do you create a customer scorecard?

One of the first aspects of creating customer service scorecards is all about setting proper objectives. The second step is to create a grading rubric to evaluate call center agents and agent performance. Third, use data from customer satisfaction surveys and customer service data to match it with the rubric.

How do you measure customer service performance?

There are different indicators used to evaluate customer service interactions. A quality scorecard should include variables like the following: average handle time, customer satisfaction score (CSAT), average first response time, the average time to closure, first contact resolution, and ticket backlog. These make the difference between good and bad service.