If you have more than one person who is evaluating your call center agents, you better be calibrating on a regular basis. Why? Because a lack of calibration can undermine the inegrity of your contact center quality progam. In fact, many say that a lack of calibration is the #1 reason that quality programs fail. It is not uncommon for one evaluator to rate a particular skill as “meets expectations” while another evaluator scores the same call as “exceeds expectations.” Quite simply, people just view things differently. The variance of this interpretation is unfair to agents and can have an extremely negative impact on your center. Implementing a process by which you remove variation in interpretation — calibration — is the best way to prevent perceived favoritism or inequality because it teaches evaluators how to score or grade using the same criteria. Successful calibration is not easy or quick. It will take many heated hours of discussion, considerable commitment and a lot of patience, as people will fight for what they believe. In order to achieve successful calibration, you must first identify and document the performance criteria to be evaluated. Most centers have done this with their evaluation form. Next, identify and document a definition or standard for each criterion. If you’re grading using “Yes” or “No,” then your definition should state what it takes to achieve “Yes.”  If you are grading using “1, 2, 3” or “meets, needs or exceeds,” then list a definition for each of these measurements. You will use these definitions when evaluating and calibrating.

The next thing you’ll need to do in the calibration process is to train your contact center evaluators on the performance criteria and outlined definitions. Once this is complete, you are ready to start scheduling evaluator calibration sessions. Calibration sessions allow evaluators to get together and listen to customer interactions, evaluate the interactions based on predetermined standards or definitions and compare their scores. Evaluators should discuss the differences of each evaluation until they come to agreement on a common score.

Be sure to check out my archived Webinar entitled "Calibration: Remove Variation from your Quality Program."  It is listed on the Envision Web site under "Web Events."

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