OK, so you have agreed and set the standard for your team, and communicated what is required to everyone. The whole team is on board and you are looking forward to success and happy customers coming back to you. The next step is to monitor the performance of your people to ensure that the standard is being maintained. Before I write about that, I want you to make sure that you have completed the first two steps completely. If there is one member of your team who is not fully aware of what is expected of them, you have a missing link! What about that imprtant member of your team who was off on parental leave or holiday when you did all the communication?
Now, monitoring is a difficult word. For me, it implies someone walking around with a clipboard, ticking boxes. In my experience, if you are monitoring people’s performance and you need a clipboard, it would be wise to keep the clipboard in your head. Oh, and I almost forgot. If you are monitoring your team’s performance, either on phones or face-to-face with customers, you need to be able to do their job to the required standard yourself. For me, that’s not optional, it’s necessary. They won’t respect you otherwise.
Now – there are a number of ways of measuring or monitoring performance. You can do it yourself, by walking around. You can take a till or a phone and cover breaks, watching and listening to what’s going on around you, trying to catch people doing the right thing. You can hire a mystery shopping company (most large companies do that), and you can even involve your customers in the process by asking them for feedback or by using The WOW! Awards However, you can’t completely abdicate responsibility for measuring the performance of your team to anyone else.
One thing I will tell you for sure. You do not manage a team of front line customer service people from behind a desk. You need to be seen to be working at least as hard as they do. You cannot see and hear what is going on on the front line of your business if you sit behind a desk in an office that is detached from your team. You get paid more than they do so it’s completely acceptable that you work harder than they do – it’s a responsibility, and your responsibility is to get the best out of your people by managing and leading them fairly and with integrity.
Measuring and monitoring the performance of a team is one of the most challenging parts of being a manager, however, when you get it right it is immensely rewarding, not only for them, but for you.
Next time, we will look at what to do with the results of your monitoring and measuring.