Colleagues Reviews Framework – The way ahead
I am on a mission. Mission to help teams {in every organization that I have worked with in the past or present} boost the visibility of key metrics throughout companies that I have worked for. I believe in a unique process improvement framework that adapts Six Sigma, COPC and Lean frameworks but faster than all of them. I call it ‘Four step pyramidal framework – OAVM’ {loosely pronounced as OM} ]
In my quest to deploy ‘OVAM’, I know that technology plays a very important role.
- To measure we need automated data capturing,Digitized monitoring tools; Especially now when I am working with India’s leading ‘Financial Services & Solutions’ provider organization, with thousands of ‘Feet on Street’ executives.
- To Visualize it is important to have easy-to-use dashboard tool in place. I have always believed that by creating visibility around key metrics and making them easy to understand, individuals and teams alike perform better. I have followed this principle in all organizations that I have worked with.
It is with this motto of improving information sharing, across ‘Consumer loan & Two-wheeler finance vertical’ that my current organization created a ‘Transactional Review Program’ for its Collections / Collections / Re-payment vertical.
Wanted to offer excellent support through our Collection desk & transition it to ‘Collections / Re-payment assistance vertical’. A Collections vertical that can help ‘Two-wheeler & Consumer loan vertical’ users re-pay their loans in time bound manner.
I wanted to be ahead of curve & knew that sharing more information internally and providing ten times as much proactive advice between support agents than we did before is going to be key in building a robust collection vertical.
While traditional]Quality monitoring process follow, systematic quality evaluations of support interactions; that is reviews can be carried out by manager, QA specialist I doubled it up by introducing: colleague reviews.
& Here is why, I picked Colleague Reviews
- Everyone is participating, feedback is no-more unilateral. Think of pool of knowledge that it creates, and envisage a knowledge bank that everyone can learn from. Enormous!
- Creating an environment where knowledge sharing becomes natural. We all know that there’s a lot that an agent can learn from each other. Expert know-how from a tenured agent on complex topics started becoming easy.
- I created a progression framework that included a colleague -to- colleague discussions. More you share insightful and useful feedback more you score. Monitoring colleague’s transaction proved to be an excellent way to facilitate this progression framework.
- Obviously, I knew that colleague reviews will help us monitor far more transactions. Using this framework, I solved a problem that many organizations face – representative sample of the total volume. In fact, this helped me reduce cost of Quality monitoring considerably.
I still remember a discussion in which ‘Feet on street staff’ helped ‘In-house colleagues understand the nuances of geo-tagging and geo-fencing.
Now, here is how I implemented colleague reviews.
- We looked for a technology solution provider, which were ready to customize their tool according to our needs, in quick time & was responsive / ready to work on new ideas.
- I had worked with TransMon in the past and knew that they are a bunch of quality professionals who will understand / appreciate and will work with us to make our aspiration a reality in quick time.
Here’s what the we have been able to do in short span of 90 days:
- All agents are doing two colleague reviews every day or ten reviews per week.
- Creating an automated, digitized scorecard. Dashboard being shared with the wider team {on mobile and laptops, through mails and whatsapp}.
- 100% transactions now have voice feedback. That’s additional advice provided to each agent with the colleague
- Audit the Auditor process. Providing constant feedback on audits in order to ensure calibration b/w auditors
have had a very smooth and successful colleague review setup procedure. With continuous calibrations and iterations, I am sure that the system will become strong
While I know that colleague review process is a huge success; however, like each new process, there are some teething problems along the way, too.
- It’s difficult to find time for colleague reviews during the busiest times. Especially month-ends. So, at times agents have no option but to skip colleague reviews and focus entirely on working on the core-activity.
- Colleagues tend to give only positive feedback to their peers. This is an issue that will take time to resolve. The more agents conduct reviews, the more natural it will become to give honest and continuous feedback
