16. Measure Results to Stay on Track
Now that you know your destination, figured out the best direction to take, and mapped out your path to success, you need to devise a way to measure your achievements. That is the only way you will know whether you are staying on track. Why measure? Because it brings focus to achieving company goals, it shows how effective you are, it helps in setting new goals and monitoring trends, it identifies input for analyzing problem areas, it gives employees a sense of accomplishment, and it helps you monitor progress. Measurements can either be objective or subjective.
Performance Prompts
Examples of objective measurements (concrete results from actual figures):
Customer service results (you will learn more about how to measure customer service through the customer response surveys in Chapter 7).
Sales figures
Revenue protection
Accuracy
Productivity
Expenses
Attendance
Examples of subjective measurements (derived from observation and opinion):
Customer satisfaction results (you will learn more about how to monitor and measure subjective customer service in Chapter 9).
Setting a positive example for others
Interpersonal relations—ability to work well with others
Adherence to established policies and procedures
Oral and written communication
Career development
When This Happens ...
You have a system in place to measure customer service based on the length of time it takes to complete a customer’s request. That should be good enough. After all, you do not get too many complaints from customers.
Try This
Do you measure your customer service based on what you think your customers want? Or do you measure your customer service based on what your customers really want? Measuring customer service based on internal measurements is a good idea, as long as you know it is in line with what your customers want. The only way to know how well you are actually performing is to ask your customers what is important to them. When you measure customer service results, it is important to measure objective results based on customer responses. It is equally important to measure subjective results from direct observations. Doing both ensures that your customers are happy and that you and your coworkers are held to high expectations.
Always make sure you do what is important to your customers.