For your survey program to be a continuous, positive reinforcement for delivering excellent service you must conduct a survey calibration process.  People must be “positively” committed to the common cause of maximizing the customer experience.  Collectively, your people deliver elite–level performance, not a report from survey results.  A primary outcome of your survey program should be the generation of “peoplepower” (employee engagement) through trust and fair accountability…a customer “Rally Cry”, if you will.   

Survey Calibration will allow you to earn trust, administer fairness, and be a safety net for service failure.  Survey calibration elevates survey programs to EQM (External Quality Monitoring) programs.  EQM programs deliver ten-times greater returns than mere survey programs.  While survey calibration is a labor-intensive process, its return is significantly greater than not having it. Survey calibration is a process where customer comments are transcribed and reviewed for analysis and appropriate survey correction. 

It is no surprise that customers do not always follow directions when completing an evaluation (survey).  And regardless of how clear instructions may be, people will accidentally interpret or defy them.  Research scientists categorize this as response errors.  On average, 6%-20% of all of customer-completed surveys contain response errors.  It is an unavoidable fact of conducting a research program.  Therefore, the errors must be corrected using a systematic and consistent approach in order to obtain the utmost integrity, accuracy, and fairness to create report cards (accountabilities) from surveys. 

Once raw customer feedback is captured, your survey calibration team transcribes and reviews every customer comment.  A recently case study test quantified the effect of the Survey Calibration process.  Without the Survey Calibration process, the result was deflated customer satisfaction scores in all key categories.  The survey calibration process identifies the customers’ scoring errors and provides an opportunity to correct the scores and assignment errors associated with the survey.     

The greatest benefit is to use EQM results for scorecards at all levels, including the front-line. Performance scorecards and Voice of the Customer programs that are visible within organizations can impact the lives of many people within an organization.  Reporting “dirty” data that contains response errors is fundamentally, ethically, and legally not an option.  For these reasons alone, it is integral that the data reported be accurate.      

Below are a few examples of comments from the tens of thousands of surveys we collect every week:

”The last Agent that helped me with my problem was very helpful however, the agent, Bonnie Harris, that answered my phone call in the very beginning put me on hold for over 5 minutes, two times and never gave me any kind of an answer. Then she got aggravated whenever I had to be transferred to a different agent.”

In the absence of a back-end survey calibration process, this survey (along with its defective scores) would have been assigned to the agent who last handled the call and actually resolved the customer’s issue.  Based on the customer’s explanation, you must remove the survey from the last agent and attached it the rightful owner -- Bonnie Harris.  Anything less than the Survey Calibration process described creates “noise” among agents whose focus should be placed on servicing customers (as opposed to discounting survey results).

Another:

“Please make the first 3 questions 8’s.  I made a mistake on grading and didn’t catch it until it was too late.  I want to make sure Cheryl gets credit for a good job.”

Once again, without a survey calibration process, this survey would have incorrect scores attached to it.  Survey Calibration is mandated for reports to be believable and defendable.  In other words, to create and maintain the “Rally Cry”.

Measuring and managing to the Voice of the Customer with an EQM program highlights process components in need of improvement, and yields an increase in service quality, both of which lead to improvements in customer and employee retention.  The quantitative scores and subsequent analysis are further enhanced by customer comments (explanations of the scores) to enable a clear path for improvement of each team and each agent.

Safety Net

“I have problems trying to return my order, number 103441042.  I was also charged twice the amount that I had agreed to pay.  I submitted a written complaint letter to an address that was given to me.  Now they say they don't have that address.  There's something wrong with this process.  That's why I'm using the survey now.  My home number is 555-847-1725.  My name is Dane Magan.  I will expect a call regarding this.”

This customer comment was transcribed and delivered to the client response team upon discovery.  The customer did not trigger a real-time alert, so if survey calibration was not present this customer comment and request for follow up would have been undiscovered, not responded to, or minimally not addressed in a timely manner.  Survey calibration combats high customer defection and the spread of negative word-of-mouth.

Survey calibration is a critical component in your effort to elevate your performance to elite.  As you can see survey calibration has numerous value-based benefits and is a key differentiator in experiencing a sustainable and high performing customer experience measurement program.