And we complete each of these sentences with the words:

…increase customer satisfaction, reduce costs, and yield greater revenue.

Will putting more metrics in the hands of agents ensure successful customer interactions? Is more information really necessary? Or are we feeding agents unnecessary sensory information that ultimately drives them further from the needs of the customer and the business? This is an interesting question, and the answer is that “it depends.” Let’s take a look at a recent case study that sheds some light on the subject.

A health insurance company was looking to “empower” Customer Service Professionals (CSPs) to deliver the very best customer service possible. Unlike the car rental example in Elaine Cascio’s recent posting on Vanguard's website, “When Rules are Meant to be Broken,” these agents understood their role and how to deliver excellent customer service. Thus, this client was looking for incremental improvements in pursuit of excellence.

The initial thinking was that CSPs would be more empowered to balance the needs of the customer and the business if more operational metrics (both new and existing) were made available to them on their desktops, in real-time. Interestingly enough, after interviewing 120 CSPs, supervisors, managers and executives, it was discovered that CSPs already felt empowered by management to deliver excellent customer service but that existing performance measurements and processes created unexpected roadblocks. Here are a few honest admissions shared by CSPs:

It became clear that putting more metrics in the hands of agents was not the right answer and could very well drive CSPs further from the needs of the customer and the business. The client had to make a choice: continue forward as planned, or spend time seeking the truth about what was really needed to optimize agent performance. The team chose the latter, which ultimately led to an alternative approach that is now yielding positive results:

Create visual indicators that summarize how agents are doing in each building block.

Freeing supervisors to focus on coaching and mentoring.

Providing supervisors and management with insight necessary to improve agent, center behavior.

Tracking detailed, cross-system metrics impacting summary building block indicators.

Placing an increased focus on exception reporting.

Did this client find metrics to be unimportant? Absolutely not. They realized both operational metrics (AHT, ASA, adherence, occupancy, etc.) and measurements tied to corporate goals (FCR, customer satisfaction, out of network conversions, etc.) had to be used in creative new ways to achieve the desired behavior and performance. And they recognized process and policy changes were just as critical to their success. I applaud this client for their vision, humility, adaptability and creative, forward thinking.