MeasuringPerformance

“The discussion here at work has been about developing measureables to evaluate our performance as it relates to effectiveness, customer service, etc.

Traditionally, the metrics used to measure performance in process/product related organizations are efficiency, utilization, productivity, scrap/rework, etc.. etc.. but now that I am working for a SERVICE related organization, it is obvious to me that the paradigm has to be modified in my mind.

My thanks first to Chili36 for his comments and insights a little while ago on the phone. My guess is that there are other TT'ers who are accountable for quarterly metrics and balanced scorecards, so I was hoping some of you might comment on what sort of measureables are appropriate within service organizations, and how one arrives at those conclusions.”

“ISO 9002”

“lol.. good try bacpac.. but I know the ISO standard inside and out..

It won't answer what I want to know.”

“Client satisfaction....is your client happy with the service you are providing? Unhappy clients mean no future work! (I should know, I got fired by one of our old clients here!) If your client is satisfied, its likely they will provide you with repeat business.

Economic measures....are you working within your budgets? What's your profit margin? Overhead factors in check? Utilization rates staying where they should be? I know there is an overhead/multiplier that we try to stick to (based on the architectural/engineering industry), which relates back to how much profit we can expect.”

“Give your clients a survey to gage your company performance. My company has tossed that idea around, but I'm not sure we've ever actually done that.

I know the president of my company occassionally calls the client that I serve to check on my performance. That information is reported back to me, good or bad.

You can even go as far as employee satisfaction, what's your turnover rate? Might be hard to keep your service efficient if you keep having to shift employees into different roles.

I'm just tossing things out as I think of them. Not sure if this is what you're looking for.”

“Well, chili suggested basically two measureables.

1) Customer Satisfaction/Retention Rate.

2) Targets for completion of each step of the process.

Obviously when it comes to customer satisfaction, the things we look for is did we do our task promptly, and did we do it right the first time.

As for the second measureable, once the process is mapped, and we understand what steps have to be completed in order to be successful, then it is just a matter of determining what is the timing of each of those steps, and targeting those times during execution.”

“One of our division developed a horrible retention rate. As long as they were in market penetration mode, they could "hide" the turnover because their market share was increasing and an increasing rate. Now it is increasing at a decreasing rate which caused them to invest heavily in developing means to improve customer satisfaction. Early results are promising. The keys were to map the process to ensure that the job was done on time and correctly. Seemingly simple, for a national service company, the logistics can be challenging.”

“You scared me there TD, I thought you were trying to measure another type of performance. For that one I would simply say decibel level and heartrate.”

“DH: don't be degrading my thread there boy.

:)”

“I have to muck around with those basically useless indicators of performance. It sounds like you've gotten good advice so far (for placating mgmt). Measuring customer satisfaction, retention, turnover rates, ee satisfaction, service time, resources expended, etc. would probably be pretty standard stuff. What you should probably do is take a field trip to your local college library and browse through some trade journals. "Best Practices" are nearly ubiquitous.”

“But you've degraded so many of mine.j/k Better me than someone else, it was only a matter of time.

smiley and I both work in the consulting engineering environment and those are pretty much the things we look at. So much of it is relationships. Client A likes my work and my competitors work, but likes my outlook and biting sense of humor better. I get the work. We're a small outfit and usually only have 1 person on a job at a time. It may be a $20,000,000 office building, but the right guy can do the whole thing(smiley, we're 25% female). I know what my fee is. At the end I look to see if my production $/hr is where I want it to be. Alot of it depends on how you handle things when, not if, things go bad. I may do 15 jobs with a client in a year and something bad will happen on at least one of them. It may be my fault, the clients fault, the contractors fault, or the owners fault. How it's handled is much more important than who's fault it is. The consulting end of things is much more grey and touchy feely. It's much harder to put numbers to these things.”

“Yeah, what dayhiker said. Some clients just like the fact that you call every other day just to say hello. Or go visit them from time to time.

Dayhiker, my particular group is 90% female, we just have our one token male to keep things lively. :) There is anohter group in the company that is notorious for NOT hiring females, though. I'd guess they're almost 90% male!”

“It’s clear that you need to revolutionize compelling mission critical empowerment and recontextualize proactive communities by thinking outside of the box.”

“I figured I'd better qualify my use of the word guy. The building in college where all my classes took place was maybe 50 years old and had always been an eng building. It had 3 mens rooms and 1 womens room per floor. The ladies in school hated that building. Heck, even the buildings are against you. The lady that works with me was in grad school the same time as me. One thing that she said has helped is that these crusty old field superintindants just melt when she says to do something. If I made the same suggestion, I'd have to explain why. They just say YES MA'M, in their best southern accent.”

“Violin, put the Dilbert book down...slowly.”

“I am so lucky no one in my company talks like that. Except the business manager guy. He's crazy!”

“840 fingers in,
840 fingers out.”

“Don't bother me! I'm staring intently at the end of my pen right now.”

“I measure customer service when I have a problem in the off hours. It seems that they hire low wage people that either can't or aren't allowed to make decisions. I think they're whole purpose is to shield the powers-that-be from verbal abuse. Even when you ask for a Supervisor, they can't or won't make decisions. If this happens, we part company. I usually get a mid level mgr to grant my wishes the next day or a few days later, but by then the damage is done.”

“catskhiker: Nice POV.. never thought of that.. :)..”

“Since you are itimate with the 9002 standard I assume you have processes to measure Customer Service calls and these are being investigated and results shared with the customer.

I am sure you are doing customer surveys, analyzing the results and getting feedback from appropriate departments.

You must be recording key parameters such as ontime compliance, win/loss percentages, first pass percentages, training.

You have scheduled and performed a few audits.

Audits are an exellent tool for measurement and identifying non conformance.”

“I think you should measure hours billed and internet server hours and see how that relates to overall efficency. Maybe you can figure out which client best supports TT time.

Ask Phil - that's his bag.”

“You mentioned:
"2) Targets for completion of each step of the process."
and
"then it is just a matter of determining what is the timing of each of those steps,"

This sounds like use of Critical Time Scheduling (with implemenation and follow-ups) might be appropiate.”

“Critical Path Scheduling!”

“Performance is defined as the ability to defeat an enemy. If a man can't stand, he can't fight.”

“heh.. good to see you to, bacpac -- where ya been?”

“.....and if he can not fight....he doesn't stand a chance....”

“Kobra Kai - Perhaps by your definitions, but he can defend, which is a form of fighting.”

“some of the best fighting I learned was Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, you spend a lot of time on your back in the guard position, and you can put a world of hurt on somebody with different locks.

Anyway, I'm still laughing at Violin's suggestion. It sounds like the answer to me.”