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Marina's
Morsels
A
regular commentary on the issues confronting senior
HR and Education Managers.
This
is a tale of missed opportunity, a fable whose moral
is aimed at organisations which allow a brilliant flash
of foresight to fizzle out like the remains of an expired
firework.
The
tale begins with a medium sized organisation specialising
in the recruitment of managers. They had made some radical
and potentially far reaching changes in their approach
to billing clients for their services and changing from
payment by results, to stage payments for each phase
of the recruitment process. This, they believed, would
reduce the scramble by recruitment agents to place a
candidate come what may; improve the quality of the
process and potentially the calibre of the candidates
placed and, longer term, improve the organisation’s
relationship with their customers.
The mechanism introduced to monitor the progress of
the change and its effect on customer relations and
satisfaction was a monthly Customer Satisfaction Survey.
This was allocated to the one person available to carry
it out, an ex-marketing executive on maternity leave
with a couple of days to spare each week. The question
sheet she was to use was ‘knocked up’ by the MD, and
consisted of a series of words or phrases which the
long suffering interviewer would need to translate into
intelligible questions and coax from the respondent
(i.e. one of the previous month’s customers) a mark
out of 10 for the performance of the recruitment agent
with whom they had had dealings. The allocation of the
marks for each question was then totalled and averaged.
As a direct outcome of the results of the survey, on
a monthly basis, for a given quota of customers interviewed
for each recruitment agent, the levels of customer satisfaction
were monitored, and in addition (an aspect which was
to assume the greatest importance over time), the calculations
of the bonus payments for each of the recruitment agents
would be based.
The
main problems, which were soon to be realised with this
approach, were:
•
If there is no standardisation of questions, their wording
and the way they are delivered by the interviewer
the results can be distorted from one interview to the
other, from one occasion to the other and between interviewers.
So in months when the usual interviewer did not conduct
the survey, anecdotal evidence suggested that bonus
payments could vary substantially from the previous
quarter.
•
An ‘out of 10’ marking scheme for performance when there
is no reference point of what the performance might
be is meaningless. Some customers may be awarding points
on attitude, others competence, yet others personality
or demeanour. Scales need definitions so that everyone
is as clear as they can be within their own semantic
variations, of what is being measured.
•
Using a former colleague to conduct such a survey caused
immense problems in that despite her good intentions
she was perceived as not totally impartial. Moreover
she was perceived as accessible and approachable so
that during her visits to the building she was pounced
on by colleagues for hints of their results, or worse
accusation of down grading.
MORAL
No. 1
Not
everyone can carry out research, no matter how easy
it is thought to be. It is a skilled and specialised
area of work in which the quality of the results reflects
the quality of the questions asked, and the methods
used.
MORAL
No. 2
Sensitive
research must be carried out by an impartial third party
to save internal conflict.
When
we were invited to take over the project we radically
changed the interviewing instrument, aligning the questions
asked about recruitment agents’ performance with competence
criteria outlined in the organisation’s competence framework.
Performance was assessed against a 1-5 scale which measured
satisfaction with performance in given areas of the
service offered by the individual in question. Specific
timescales were allocated to ensure that customers answered
questions with reference to the last contact with the
recruitment agent.
We
ran the Customer Satisfaction Survey for a total of
five quarters, and although we could not dissuade the
organisation from basing bonus payments on the results,
we believe that we ran it as professionally as was possible
with some clearer and more precise measures.
The
survey went smoothly month after month with care taken
not to call the same individual or company within a
given period of time. On the whole response rates were
high, refusals coming largely from those companies which
had not had dealings with the organisation during the
previous month but had been mistakenly included on the
clients’ list. As the survey progressed, we found that
the client lists were getting smaller and smaller, added
to the fact that some companies were not contacted to
avoid talking to them too often. This meant that our
lists were shrinking and leaving us less and less scope
to achieve our quotas.
Each
quarter results were fed back to the organisation with
details of total and average scores, trends showing
areas of concern, and details about the organisations’
perceived progress and standing among its customers.
In the first quarter, in spite of the fact that a relatively
small amount of data had been gathered, some definite
trends were beginning to emerge which were captured
in a first quarter report provided to our clients with
the survey results.
The
same trends persisted throughout the life of the survey
revealing the customers’ perceptions as being:
•
The recruitment agency’s new charging system was in
general perceived as reasonable if pricey.
•
The performance of the recruitment agents was in general
considered to be adequate although this varied according
to the personality of both the customer and the recruitment
agents, and the regularity of their interaction.
•
The organisation was not perceived by all their clients
as taking appropriate care with the candidates put forward,
the quality or calibre of their expertise, and the information
available on candidates.
•
As time progressed satisfaction ratings were reducing,
albeit in small amounts but nonetheless downwards rather
than upwards.
•
Overall long-term clients in established relationships
with them, were happy with the organisation’s performance,
although a few key customers were dissatisfied and suggesting
that their relationship may be severed.
•
The organisation was criticised for not tailoring available
candidates to clients’ needs but rather fobbing them
off with whoever was available to make a placement (exactly
what they were trying to get away from!)
•
The organisation was suspected of not really having
an insight into the needs of the industry they were
servicing.
•
It was clear from the survey trends that the result
would be a loss of business and undermining of their
core client base.
This
data was fed back regularly to the organisation, but
it was clear that they selectively used some information
and discarded or gave little credence to the remainder.
From the data available they could have ideally established
a development programme for staff for identified areas
of need; established problem areas in which greater
care could be taken to identify more closely customer
needs, and match it with their available candidates;
followed up dissatisfied customers and established through
face to face discussions how problems could be resolved
and their root.
However
the company chose to follow a policy of ‘if we ignore
this it will go away’ as they were going down the acquisition
route, and expanding into a wide range of interrelated
areas e.g. human resource development, firefighting
recruitment i.e. of casual, temporary staff. After several
months and correspondence from our team seeking a review
of both the methodology and a discussion of the results
to date, the Customer Satisfaction Survey was discontinued
by the company, with general sighs of relief from ourselves
mixed with regret at the loss of regular project income.
We
have since heard that the company continued to lose
customers, and having lost sight of some their core
business objectives through moving into the realm of
acquisition and expansion were frantically trying to
claw back some lost ground.
MORAL
No. 3
Why
pay good money to have good quality sound data if you’re
going to completely ignore it.
MORAL
No. 4
While
you are busy at the front door, make sure the competition
isn’t stealing the edge through the back door.
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