Measuring the Intangibles – Improving Call Quality Increases Member Loyalty

In an earlier blog, we covered how to avoid being fired by your members – Build Member Loyalty with the FIRST Call. Tracking your credit union’s first call resolution rate is a necessary and objective way to measure member satisfaction.

When you are dealing with people, however, objective measures do not always tell the whole story. It’s also important to identify and measure a call center representative’s softer communication skills. Yes, you fixed a problem or completed a request, but was the member satisfied with the person-to-person interaction and overall experience?

How to Measure Softer Skills

Measuring the softer skills of communication can be subjective and, therefore, difficult to identify and track. My experience with credit unions and call centers has helped me to specifically identify and recommend ways for credit unions to score their agents in the following categories:

• General tone – Is the agent pleasant to speak with? Do they speak with the same rate of speed as the caller?
• Clarity – Is the agent speaking clearly?
• Listening skills – Has the agent shown they understand the member’s issue?
• Avoiding dead air – Does the agent avoid long, awkward silences during the call?
• Empathy – Does the agent relate to members? This is especially important for emotional issues such as stolen cards, late payments and other issues that could upset the member.
• Courtesy – Is the agent polite? Is the agent using the member’s name? Thanking the caller for being a member?
• Sticking to the correct script or process – Does the agent follow the procedures that will best resolve the member’s call?
• Timeliness – Does the agent avoid wasting time on the call?
• Additional help – Does the agent ask if the member needs help with anything else before ending the call?
• Survey – Is the member given the chance to share their opinion of how well the credit union met their service expectations?

Keep an Ear Out

The best way to measure call quality is to record and monitor calls. Agents can then be scored on a range of factors to arrive at a “quality score.” Monitoring call does not have to be time-intensive. Credit unions can add analytic software to their phone systems that identifies and flags calls with high emotional responses or long period of silence, helping identify agents or scripts that need to be improved.

It is important to set two levels of acceptable scores – a base score to establish minimum standards, and an incentive score to encourage agents to strive for high scores. Then, promote the rewards that come with those scores – loyal members and a job well done.

Credit unions with high call quality will better impress their members. This helps create memorable experiences and increase member loyalty, which drives both retention and new member referrals.

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