Performance management is essential in improving customer service delivery as it reviews how staff are doing currently and therefore highlights what can be done to make the delivery better. The purpose of a performance management policy is to review how staff are performing. This generates information that can be shared, if it is good practice, or it can generate improvements to be made if something is bad practice. A performance management policy gives staff a set of rules that they must follow. Theoretically, this ensures a consistent level of customer service received by the customer.
The structure of a performance management policy is usually set into different parts. The number of parts is determined by the objectives of the team and by the wider objectives set by the organisation. Part of the structure can involve personal objectives for each staff member. This can be general ones across the team. For example minimum contact time for customers, number of appointments that have to be booked, minimum number of face to face appointments that have to be booked etc. Personal objectives can also be specific to the staff member, for example if a staff member wants development opportunities.
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Performance targets have changed over the years. Previously they were managed individually, checking if each staff member has met their targets for the service offered. This was reviewed by a box marking. Moving forward the organisation will be introducing a team based performance management system. This is designed to have a more structured team based approach to our objectives and assess us based on this. The objectives and targets are developed by the leadership team, as they determine the standard of service required. Once the policy is in place, it needs to be monitored. This can be achieved in a number of ways. One of these is through 1 to 1 meetings with each staff member. This gives the line manager a private environment to have an open and honest conversation with their staff member to discuss the targets set. There is usually two formal performance meetings that take place throughout the year – a mid – year review and a full – year review. This gives the opportunity to evaluate the action points from one meeting to another. For a lot of customer service teams, there is usually more frequent, smaller, 1 to 1 meetings with their managers.
There is also the opportunity to manage performance in larger group settings. This is especially effective when there is a positive statement to deliver. This gives praise to the staff member or team involved as well as an incentive for the other staff/team to get that recognition. Larger group forums also enable performance management information to be delivered to a large crowd very quickly, for example if there is a change in the daily customer contact time with a claimant, this information can be delivered quickly to all staff in a group forum. The performance policy benefits both staff as individuals and the organisation as a whole. For an individual, they benefit by being able to have a competent level of customer service skill and get recognized for their work. For the organisation, the benefit is having a workforce that can deliver the level of customer service required and meet the standards required to execute the service effectively.
Also the organisation is able to set out the standards of behavior required through the performance policy. All of this improves customer service delivery as it improves the skill of the work force, staff feel more confident to deal with complex cases, happier staff as they are recognized when they do good work, more satisfied customers through the service they are receiving and more creative customer service approach. In the scenario that there is no performance management policy in place, it could lead to decreased quality of customer service, staff not feeling recognized and no set standards of behavior in the workplace. The performance management policy gives the organisation an identity to follow and a constant that everyone should follow.
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