Many businesses have service review ratings to credit their service score at a company level. Platforms like TripAdvisor, Yelp, Trustpilot, etc., provide customer review ratings at the company level, while many businesses collect in-house customer service ratings. Some customer service agents, such as those of banks, telcos, etc., resort to voice machines to obtain service ratings after each call.

These service ratings stay with the companies for years, without any further consideration of the dynamics of service changes over time. Let’s examine the problems of these static service ratings, and how to dynamically reflect the service ratings tactically to regain customer confidence: –

Why is the 1-liner service rating inaccurate?

The 1-liner service rating is based on the specific incident taking place between the customer service staff and the customer. There is no indication which is the staff, and specifically, if that staff is still on the job. Imagine there is an excellent staff that serviced the customer 10 years ago, but the service rating stays with the company, even though that staff left the job 9 years ago?

So, past static service rating stays with the business, and gets computed to the overall service score. How can these ratings be accurate when the great and not-so-great staff had left the company?

Why it’s unfair to the customer?

In other words, past static rating is no longer accurate when the staff is no longer with the company. This is unfair to the business and customers, who rely on old data to assess the service level. Right?

If the service rating is static and inaccurate, then there is a waste of resources trying to fix a problem of the past, or worse, getting complacent if the rating score is good. In other words, if the past service rating is terrible, the business potentially loses a sale, but if the rating is right, then it’s very much unfair to the customer.

Why is it hard for businesses to improve service levels?

Many internal and external rating platforms do not target the staff to provide a final rating score. This means the management team is unable to provide targeted assessment and training to rectify the service problem.

For example, if the overall service rating is terrible, the management team will roll out training to the staff. This is a massive waste of resources to fix a specific staff problem. Right?

What should be changed?

All service ratings should start at the individual staff level for precise feedback and assessment. Personal staff ratings may cause uneasiness to some staff, but it’s necessary for the business and the customers.

Additionally, the computation of the service rating should be changed too. Simply, if the staff has left the company, the service rating of that staff should also be removed. So, this would change the dynamics of consolidating service ratings to ensure that it stays current.

Why individual service staff rating matter?

Not an easy decision or change to make, but the management team should enforce service rating at the individual staff level. Be prepared for resistance from the staff. The staff that does well will embrace it, but the staff that doesn’t will violently reject it.

Getting service ratings for individual staff is just the initial step. Subsequent training can be targeted based on ratings and comments from customers, as well as staff performance assessment, rewards and job promotions, etc.

Why should staff ratings be grouped?

Grouping of staff service ratings provides a service benchmark for every staff in the group. Internally, the management team gets to understand better how well each group is performing at the company level, and externally, customers get to understand service ratings at outlet or office level.

Now, each office or outlet will have many different groups. For example, a fast-food outlet will have cashier, servers, burgers, french fries, and etc., groups. Whereas in an office, there will be groups of delivery, pre-sales engineers, post-sales support, customer service, etc. So, a grouping of staff provides a clearer picture of how service rating differs from outlet to outlet or office to office. Make sense?

Why should an outlet or branch office have their service rating?

Consolidating different groups of service ratings will make up the actual and accurate service rating at outlet or office level. If your business has more than 1 office or outlet, each of them will have its service rating, while consolidating all offices or outlets provide an aggregate service rating for your business.

These outlets or office service ratings provide a benchmark and assessment individually and give fairer and accurate service ratings to customers. A diversification of outlet or office service ratings provides better trust to your customers than a 1-liner static service score.

How should service ratings be displayed for customers?

Displaying service ratings on your business website provides an endorsement of service level to your customers, and act as a customer testimonial to boost customer confidence.

Internally, your staff should view and watch their service ratings versus their group. This will provide a little competition among the staff to serve the customers better, and a good way to get customers using reviews

What can be a follow up for your business?

You should monitor and compare service ratings on a periodical basis at the group and outlet levels. Internally, set up some contests or competitions to encourage staff to do better, and externally, to better understand customers and their expectations.

You should better align service rating versus staff performance. In other words, let customers decide which staff do better instead of the traditional manager-based performance assessment, which in many cases, is biased.

Why is dynamic service rating the way to go?

Because the static 1-liner service review is meaningless and inaccurate to reflect the current service standard of your business correctly, and it’s unfair to your customers. So, please consider the dynamic service rating to provide a realistic and meaningful evaluation for your staff and customers.

Performance assessment, rewards, and promotions should be tightly linked to these service ratings to reflect better service rendered to your customers. Unfortunately, this also means if your staff leaves their job, the service rating of that staff is lost too.

I strongly recommend that you consider Graz.me, the customer service rating platform that delivers dynamic service ratings for your businesses. Graz.me provides detailed reporting for your management team and offers individual ratings for all your staff.

Summary

Dynamic service rating is the way to go beyond 2020 to provide an accurate and meaningful assessment of service to your customers. Get service rating on individual staff, and group these personal ratings give rise to a credible service rating that provides an ongoing accurate measurement of service representation for your customers. The consolidated service rating provides external marketing confidence and internal assessment of performance and rewards that help to propel your business to the next level of service excellence. For individual service staff, we encourage you to embark on a personal journey on your service reviews