Interesting stats revealed by the UK Customer Satisfaction Index show that as of January 2024, overall customer satisfaction across the thirteen industries they track was down by 1.7 points to 76.0 – lower than it had been during the recent global health challenges.
Many companies are wondering how they can improve their customer services and keep standards as high as possible. One key initiative to bring in is OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). Here’s an explainer as to how they can be used for success in customer service.
OKRs – A Quick Explainer
OKRs are a set of objectives that companies can define and use to track their progress and ensure complete customer satisfaction. They’re tracked and set using specialist OKS software and they can form an essential part of:
- Employee engagement
- Performance management
- Goal setting
Why do Customer Service Teams Need OKRs?
They’re an effective method of aligning goals and performance with the overall aims of a business. They’re also a hugely powerful performance management tool that can help organisations measure success. Here are just a few of the reasons they’re essential for any customer service team.
They’re a superb way of helping to marry up customer service goals with the overall aims of a business. If clear and measurable goals are set, a custom service team can get together and focus on achieving their outcomes and improving business results.
OKRs provide a great deal of clarity and focus on the achievements that need to be made and when. Customer service teams can then stay focused on the most important of these objectives and avoid any distractions.
They’re a useful tool to promote communication and collaboration among different teams in a business. They’ll ensure everyone has their set roles, yet they’re all working towards a common goal.
OKRs deliver a robust framework to measure the performance of a customer success team. If achievable goals are set then it’s easy to track their performance and progression. This also means that achievements and wins can be celebrated alongside any areas for improvement, too.
Key Steps to Forming Customer Service OKRs
Define any key objectives: What are the overall OKR examples and objectives for the customer service team? They must be aligned with the main goals of a business and have a focus on driving satisfaction, employee and customer retention, and improving revenue.
Pick a superior performance management system: Tracking progress and measuring success comes down to having a superior performance management system. It’ll help ensure everyone on the customer service team works towards the same overarching goals and offer improvement tips.
Key results: These are the measurable outcomes that will assist any customer service team in achieving their objectives. They’ve got to be highly specific and time-sensitive to keep on top of workflows.
Tracking the customer journey: The customer journey and its success are key here and alongside the success of the customer service team, it’s essential to track the customer’s opinions too.
Continuous reviews: Lastly, it’s essential to continuously review and update your customer OKRs so that they remain pertinent to the goals the team is trying to achieve. Business aims change over time and they’ve got to be kept in line with evolving objectives.
