How many measures do you track in your contact center on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis? Ten, twenty, a hundred? Do you know why you track each metric? Do you think watching each measure every day is critical, or do you only measure certain elements after a warning? Have you categorized your metrics according to “cause” versus “effect?”
If you struggle with your measurement system, Temple Grandin, the author of “Animals in Translation,” has terrific insight regarding how to set up a successful measurement system. She attributes her measurement success to understanding critical control points. Ms. Grandin defines a critical control point as a “single measurable element that covers a multitude of sins.”
Ms. Grandin says, “When I’m auditing the animals on a farm, one thing I want to know is whether the animal’s legs are sound. There are a lot of things that can affect a cow’s ability to walk: bad genes, poor flooring, too much grain in the feed, foot rot, poor hoof care and rough treatment of the animals. Some people will try to measure all of these things. But that’s not my approach. I measure one thing only: how many cattle are limping? That’s all I need to know. If too many animals are limping, the farm fails the audit. After that, the farm management has to figure out what is causing the limping and then how to fix it.” To Ms. Grandin, this one critical control point (limping) covers all the possible reasons (poor flooring, foot rot, etc.) an animal might be experiencing the undesired outcome (unsound legs).
What areas of your contact center do you want to know are sound? Are you measuring the critical control point for each of those areas? If you have more than 10 measures, then you probably aren’t aligned to this critical control point measurement method. But if you are one of the “critical” elite, please let us know the control points you have identified.
