Customer Service Performance Review

How can a customer service manager know their team's performance without having a performance review? Answer: they can't. 

This works both ways. By running a customer service performance review checklist, you, the manager, can know exactly how well the team is performing.

If you want your team to know where they stand - what they do well and where they can improve - then you have to develop a process for delivering real-time, continuous feedback. - Heidi Zak, CEO.

By running this checklist every two weeks, you'll gain access to qualitative information, quantitative data, and metrics, so you can pinpoint where your team is succeeding, and where they're falling behind. It will also keep you focused on the agenda, ensuring you don't miss a step along the way.

This workflow has conditional logic applied. The use of conditional logic means that, depending on the answers given, the next step will be different. For more on conditional logic, our Help Page contains a wealth of information.

Answer 'yes' or 'no' via the dropdown below.

When a company grows and scales upward, it's necessary for new employees to join the team to aid the day-to-day running, promotion, and management of the business.

As a customer service manager, you're at the helm of onboarding new team members. It's important to keep a progress report of employees as they're being onboarded to ensure they're being onboarded correctly and, afterward, are well-trained.

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Document the progress of the new employee(s) in the text field. 

Onboarding a new employee happens in stages. So that you can stay up-to-date with their progress and are able to follow their journey through the process, document their progress in the form field below.

Add a prospective onboarding finish date using the date field.

The onboarding and training process may take days, weeks, or months. However, as soon as the training ends, you'll want your new employees to move forward and be an integral part of the customer service team.

By adding a prospective date for the onboarding to finish, you can plan the next steps for the new employee ahead of time.

Review your employees' attendance of meetings over the past two weeks by answering the dropdown.  

Work-related meetings - no matter if they happen daily, weekly, or monthly - are pivotal for fostering team collaboration. For this reason alone, it's imperative for the customer service team to attend all planned meetings.

This task (and the ones following) will help you keep track of the attendance from your team.

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Add details of meeting non-attendance during the last two weeks in the form fields below.

As this is customer service performance review occurs every two weeks, after running this checklist twice within a month, you will be provided with clear information regarding the month's attendance and non-attendance. And by using this checklist regularly throughout the year, it will show data regarding those who have been consistent, and those who haven't. 

Write an email draft to meeting non-attendees.

If the employees in question needed to be absent for a meeting or two, a message to them isn't required. 

However, if they're regularly missing meetings and it's a cause for concern, draft out an email to those it concerns.

Send an email to employees who are frequently missing meetings.

The email widget below pulls in the information (names; emails; the message draft) you put in earlier. Should you want to add or remove anything, that is possible once the "test send" button has been clicked.

Schedule any extra meetings for the next two weeks.

With people being away, sometimes meetings don't go ahead. With that in mind, it's time to schedule any additional meetings that haven't already been planned for the next two weeks.

Review your employees' attendance at the office over the past two weeks by answering the dropdown.  

If an employee or a number of employees are taking too much time off, it's detrimental to the rest of the team. Considering customer service teams often need multiple people working concurrently to answer the intense load of customer inquiries, time off needs to be regulated.

Add information regarding office non-attendance during the last two weeks in the form fields below.

By adding information regarding non-attendance, not only is it possible to track how much holiday time has been booked off by your colleagues, but it's also noticeable who has been taking too much time off.

Draft an email to employees who are taking too much time off.

Employees can't be at work 24/7, 365 days a week. In many cases, those taking time off will have pre-booked it for a holiday, or have taken the day off due to an illness or an emergency. 

That being said, there may come a time when an employee is spending too much time away from work. Draft a message in the box below.

Email the employee(s) in question, letting them know that they've taken too much unplanned time off.

You will find the email widget below to send an email warning the employee(s) in question. Should you need to edit the message text, you can do so after pressing "test send".

Assess team motivation by answering the dropdown below.

Motivation plays an indisputably large role in productivity, as Heryati Ramlan suggests on the 6Q blog. Having a motivated team means that not only will more get done, but the output will also be of higher quality. Assessing team motivation means that, as a customer service manager, you can keep tabs on how well the team is performing.

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Increase team motivation by selecting one or more of the motivation-enhancing tactics below.

The actions below have been taken from reputable, knowledgeable sources like Bonusly, who published this useful 20-point guide on boosting motivation. We also know a thing or two about team motivation - try reading our list of 63 team-building activities. 

Use one or more of these methods so, next week, your team can reach their motivational peak.

Note down your findings from recent customer reviews regarding team performance.

Reading through recent customer reviews can be very telling in regard to your colleagues' performance. Perhaps one employee, in particular, is receiving constant praise while, on the other hand, another is being spoken about in a negative light. Use online reviews as a way to gauge how well your team is doing. 

Document your findings from customer satisfaction ratings regarding team performance.

Similarly, customer satisfaction ratings in programs like Intercom can be a useful tool to gather information regarding team performance. Outliers will crop up, and not all of the ratings will correctly match the experience the customer service team members gave the customer, but it's convenient for collecting data.

Record important customer service metrics in the fields below.

Analyzing hard data - the metrics regarding issues logged, issues responded to, and issues solved on the first reply, for example - can be extremely useful for judging performance. 

If you're using help desk software like Help Scout, there will be a page where you can view all these metrics. It's possible to view overall metrics as well as specific metrics, their sources, and more.

Paste the numbers and figures in the text field below, and if you can link directly to it, record the URL as well. 

Select an option from the dropdown field regarding team and employee successes.

Consider if there have been any standout successes from the team in the past two weeks. Information collected from customer reviews, customer satisfaction ratings, and meetings will inform you of these successes. Then, select an answer from the dropdown field.

Log the successes in the fields underneath.

If successes have occurred, then log them in the field below for future reference. If they're not logged, the successes will be forgotten about and go unappreciated.

Think about whether any suggestions have been made by your employees.

Processes can always be improved. For example, if a colleague has suggested a different way to go about the customer onboarding process, their suggestion could transform it for the better. The first step, however, is acknowledging the suggestion itself.

Write the suggestions made by employees down in the fields underneath.

Writing the suggestions down means there will be a record of them for future use. As a customer service manager, these suggestions could help your team to become bigger, better, and even more productive. Including the details of the suggestion and the suggester's name will help distinguish the suggestions.

Recognize any team and employee issues by selecting the appropriate answer below.

Every now and then, issues crop up. Think about and recognize any issues that have occurred in the last two weeks.

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Document the issues in the form fields.

Issues can be rectified as long as they're acknowledged, documented, and then spoken about. For this task, keep a record of the problems by documenting the information.

Discuss and resolve any problems with the appropriate colleagues.

In your role as a customer service manager, it's often you who fellow colleagues will turn to, should they have any issues or problems. Help to rectify problems as soon as possible, otherwise, they could seriously impact the people who brought up the issues, in addition to other team members.

For essential tips to resolve workplace conflicts, here's a 10-point guide written by Ben Aston for HubSpot. 

Draft a message in which you offer colleagues continued support.

It's important for the employees you manage to know that you're able to support them. Take a moment during this customer service performance review to draft a message in which you let employees know your inbox is always open should they have any questions, queries, or problems they'd like to discuss. 

Email your entire customer service team, reminding them you can offer support.

You will find your support message draft in the email widget's body. If you need to make amendments to the email addresses, the subject, or the body text, that can be done after hitting the "test send" button.

Note down professional developmental opportunities for your team.

Professional growth doesn't only occur inside the office - it occurs outside of it, too. If there are opportunities - like an internal training week or a weekend conference taking place nearby - note down these opportunities below. They could be very useful for your colleagues.

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Tell employees about development opportunities.

Either by email, voice call, on an in-person conversation, let your colleagues know about the opportunities you've found. To be reminded of the available opportunities, read the list you wrote down again:

Consider if an employee has been performing effectively by using the dropdown field.

Employees who are successful in their job should be celebrated. Think if there has been a particularly well-performing employee in the last two weeks.

Input the details of the well-performing employee.

Praising an employee for a job well-done can be very beneficial all-round. When an employee knows they're doing a good job, their satisfaction and productivity levels increase.

Before sending out a celebratory email, input their details in the fields below.

Send a celebratory email to the employee in question using the email field.

By using variables, information from the previous task has been pulled into the above email field. That means, for each time this checklist is launched, you can congratulate a different employee simply by inputting new information in task 31.

Plan out activities for the coming two weeks.

As the review of the last two weeks has been now completed, focus on planning tasks, duties, and other essential activities out for the next two weeks. Having a plan will ensure that the actions will be executed.

Export a copy of this completed checklist.

Having a copy of a completed checklist means you can refer back to all the information that's been documented, as well as having the opportunity to show important data to a director or CCO immediately. 

For information on how to export a checklist as a CSV file, a PDF, or as a printout, here's a simple guide we've written to help you get on your way.

• Swetha Amaresan - What Does a Customer Service Manager Do?
• Mat Patterson - How Top Customer Service Teams Measure Performance
• Amritpal Dhangal - How to Measure Customer Service Success?
• Paul Falcone - Employee Self-Assessment Examples in Customer Service
• Steve Crabtree - Worldwide, 13% of Employees Are Engaged at Work
• Benjamin Brandall - 63 Team Building Activities That Your Team Won't Roll Their Eyes At
• Heryati Ramlan - Why Employee Motivation Is Important (& How to Improve It)
• Kim Harrison - Why employee recognition is so important – and how you can start doing it
• Dina Gerdeman - Forget Cash. Here Are Better Ways to Motivate Employees
• Shawn Achor - The Benefits of Peer-to-Peer Praise at Work
• Berkeley Human Resources - Resolving Conflict Situations
• Ben Aston - 10 Tips for Handling Conflict at Work

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• Human Resources Pre-Employment Screening Checklist
• Employee Background Check Checklist
• General Employee Onboarding Checklist
• Call Center Employee Onboarding Checklist
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• Records Disposal Checklist
• Office Safety Inspection Checklist
• Office Risk Assessment Checklist
• Office Conflict Resolution Checklist
• Daily Customer Service Duties
• Employee Performance Review
• Customer Service Training
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• How to Respond to Negative Reviews
• Customer Journey Map Template
• Reduce Churn
• Employee Relations Checklist
• Employee Discipline Checklist
• Employment Termination Checklist
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• Performance Management Checklist
• Performance Review Checklist
  (The checklist above is a more generalized performance review checklist.)