Your Fast Guide to Why Service Representatives Fall Down The 8 Factors Task clarity. Perhaps the performer is not clear on the performance that it required. Would you bet your next year’s salary that your view of your employee’s accountabilities and expectations matches your view of those key parameters? Task priority: Sometimes failure is due to the performer’s perception that the performance you expect is not really all that important. Competence: Failure can sometimes be due to a simple lack of skill. People can’t do well if they don’t know how. Learning psychologist Robert Mager offers an easy test to determine whether you’re facing a skill problem or motivation issue: "Could he do the job if his life depended on it? If not, you have a training problem. If yes, you may have a performance gap no amount of training can effect." Obstacles: Real or imagined, physical and procedural barriers can interfere with good performance. A computer system that doesn’t allow a service rep to easily step between different customer accounts is a very real problem. Being told by a fellow employee: "Don’t spend more than 70 seconds on a call. Long phone calls are the easiest way to get fired around here," whether that rule is real or hearsay, makes it real in the employee’s eyes. Reward for failure: Sometimes there’s more reward for poor performance than for good performance. People who get attention (however negative) when they do poorly and are ignored when they do well may stop doing well just to get a reaction. Performance feedback: Do you provide clear, timely information that helps your people evaluate and fine-tune their performance? Is it useful and presented from a consistent perspective? Is it objective, verifiable and clear? Or is it pointlessly general, only oral and subject to weather-vane swings in emphasis that can confuse and disorient? Role/person mismatch: When all else fails, you may need to re-examine whether the performer would be more successful in a different role or a different team. Sometimes players who look good in tryouts or in the gym look less skilful on the field of play or on the stage in front of an audience. A customer service rep who can handle any single problem with great aplomb, but who folds under the pressure of ringing phones and 30 calls an hour, may be unsuited to the pace. But take care in jumping directly to the "he/she can’t cut it" assessment. If the employee has been away from the firing line for a while, or is new to the pace of a live work load, his or her performance can quickly improve – with a little encouragement and help from you. Waiting and watching is critical to making the correct determination and setting the right course of action. When the employee doesn’t try, or seems to be actually trying to fail: This is a relatively rare situation. And one that is often hard to separate from the seven more common situations just described. Tread lightly before coming to the conclusion that the employee is being"wilful" or acting in a "stubborn" or "malicious" way. Better for you to assume that most employees want to do a good job, earn their pay and avoid conflict with you, the organisation and their fellow employees.

Source:  Copyright Ron Zemke Ron Zemke is president of Performance Research Associates, Inc

Links:  eArticles Store: Ron’s article eBooks Store: Ron’s Books eSpeakers Store: Ron Zemke speaks! Find out more about Performance Research Associates in the Consultancy Services Section of the eProducts & Services Store Your turn. In the spirit of raising performance thresholds in customer service, if you have a Fast Guide of your own to share with eCustomerServiceWorld's Best Practice community, email it to PhilDourado@eCustomerServiceWorld.com. If we publish it, you shall be rewarded (with an eCustomerServiceWorld.com t-shirt and your name up in lights - or at least on people's screens - as the source of the good advice)

Your turn. In the spirit of raising performance thresholds in customer service, if you have a Fast Guide of your own to share with eCustomerServiceWorld's Best Practice community, email it to PhilDourado@eCustomerServiceWorld.com.