When Amir started in his role as Customer Service Director at a leading, global software company there was little structure or accountability within the Support team. They weren’t on the same page — and individual performance varied drastically. Being a remote team only amplified the problems, agents were often working in silos with no visibility of what others were doing.
It was very demotivating because you had some people performing excellently and others who weren’t but without accountability, you couldn't reward those who did well or highlight how poor performance affected the whole team.
Tracking the impact of training with dashboards
Amir decided to double down on training to make sure everyone had the same level of knowledge. At the same time, he set up a KPI dashboard with Geckoboard. He used the dashboard to show the team how they were improving. Data such as CSAT score and QA stats were now visible to the team and they were able to easily see the positive change happening.
We needed to align everyone’s competency levels because everything was quite scattered on the team. With the data on our dashboard we were able to demonstrate the uplift not only to agents but to senior management too.
The impact was huge. Previously, agents hadn’t been consistently aware of the data that underpins their work. They used Zendesk but no one in the team had the experience necessary to be able to properly track performance in a meaningful way.
Our First Touch Resolution rate increased by 41% when we rolled out our dashboards
Data transparency brings a remote team together
Amir is a big believer in transparency across the business, regardless of what the data shows — it needs to be available to everyone. This was tough at first, those who weren’t performing as well weren’t happy to have their QA scores shared so publicly.
I spent time listening to those who had concerns. It was important to highlight how we were investing in training and development to get where we all wanted to be. Geckoboard allowed us to demonstrate individual agents’ progress since receiving training. We had to build trust in the system to show we wanted the best for the whole team in the long run.
As Amir manages a group of entirely remote agents, the ability to see data that connects them back to the wider team has been one of the most impactful changes. Rather than a group of individuals chipping away at their own workload, they’ve become united. This has brought a new sense of confidence, each agent can see the impact their effort is having on the team goals — such as the First Touch Resolution rate.
The entire team is now able to be properly accountable for their work. They have complete transparency over their workload as well as how they’re performing towards their quarterly bonus target as this data is available on their dashboard. Happily, the team were all on course to receive their bonuses when we chatted with Amir!
There are challenges when entering a role like Amir did, rebuilding the way the team works entirely. But any hesitation around sharing Support team data within the organization has vanished. Agents are more confident and better equipped to provide excellent customer service as a result of the transparency Amir has embedded in their culture.
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Amir and his team work with highly sensitive data so we’re not using his real name or that of the company but this is a genuine Geckoboard customer story.
