Management, Human Resources, and Life in a Customer Focused World

In January 2008, I wrote a post that still brings in a good amount of traffic (KPI (Key Performance Indicators) – Are they what they used to be?). In this post, I defined six KPI that I find to be the ones that are quality and quantity focused. A while back, I was in a discussion with the Manager of Quality Assurance for SupportSoft.com’s new work from home project and he asked me “In your opinion, which is more important for a manager in a call center — quality or quantity?”

The answer I gave him was pretty straight forward – neither.

A center simply can not provide enough service if the focus is 100% on quality unless it is very over staffed, but at the same time, focusing solely on quantity, results in a significant decrease in customer satisfaction and loyalty.  Because of this, there needs to be a good balance struck.