IGNITE MOMENTUM: Departmental Disconnect Case Study

The situation:

Sometimes what is being measured does not support initiatives. In one large organization, sales and marketing departments were trained to tout the personalized service clients received from their operations team. However, no one had mentioned this to operations! Operations personnel with direct client interface were measured, compensated and reviewed based on how quickly they could get off the phone or transfer a call. In the ops department, this was referred to as “satisfying the client’s need in a timely manner”; in real life, it translated into a serious disconnect between what the client was expecting and their actual experience.

The solution:

Once we discovered this disconnect, we were able to change the metrics for ops employee evaluation, articulate to operations how very important they were to ensuring client satisfaction, and shore up some long-term conflicts between sales, marketing and operations. Employee satisfaction in the ops department skyrocketed.

The conclusion:

Sometimes all it takes is a fresh pair of eyes.