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Summary
Expectations drive behavior. Behavior drives outcomes.
Led teams to reach 4.7/5 CSATÂ
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The outcome
I added the customer back into the equation. I put the customer first.
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I shared what I observed with team managers and leads. I met with every team every day for one week to communicate actual expectations - customer expectation and client expectation. I followed up with the teams daily to: drive the expectations, demonstrate what this meant to how cases were managed, and support the teams through the behavior shift.Â
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I met with managers daily to support them through the changes as well.
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The results were immediate with the site attaining 4.7 CSAT and meeting every KPI target at the close of the month, two weeks later.
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What I did
While leading the Training Observation project (see Reduced time to productivity by 12%), I asked new hires what they understood the expectations to be. I also made note of how expectations were communicated during training.
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All sites measured performance against metric expectations listed above. At the sites that consistently performed well, meeting KPI benchmarks, they understood the expectation was to resolve the customer's issue, respond to the customer in a timely manner, and to be polite, friendly, and empathetic when talking to the customer.
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In the U.S., every support engineer knew every performance metric expectation, but not one mentioned anything about helping a customer or resolving their issue. Casework exemplified how expectation drove behavior. Engineers waited 24 hours to make initial contact on a case and let the case sit for 48 hours before following up again. It was common to see generic emails sent out on cases that added no value but made sure the case was never idle. When the customer didn't reply to the generical follow-up email, the customer was considered unresponsive and case closed unresolved.
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The Problem
In five years since the U.S. location opened, the site had not attained Microsoft's 4.7 CSAT goal.
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Despite pressure from leadership and the client, the site could not meet the goal.
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Expectations driven:
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50% of cases closed < 7 days
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SLA met on every case (initial contact within 48 hours, follow-ups every 48 hours)
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No idle cases (system tagged case as "worked" with out-going email)
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Strike process followed (process to close out case when customer is unresponsive)
See other achievements
Most employees will meet clearly communicated, accountable expectations — a small minority will struggle even with support, and another group will exceed expectations on their own drive. If that's true across the board, the variable isn't effort — it's expectation: what are you setting, and how are you driving it?
Knowledge matters. Ability to effectively share knowledge and teach understanding beyond information on a screen was developed through extensive study of Adult Learning Theory and how people think, and grounded in deep expertise in cloud architecture. Experienced building and managing a scalable learning platform and promoting a culture of learning and environment for knowledge sharing.
Looking beyond the line graphs tracking metrics in a performance dashboard. Digging deep into the numbers to uncover the hidden patterns that others miss and surfacing insight that matters. Relating patterns to behaviors to see "behind the scenes" of the story told by the numbers, and using this insight to drive outcomes and deliver results.
Statistically, most employees will meet clearly communicated, accountable expectations, and a few will be self-driven, high-performers exceeding expectation.
If that's true across the board, the variable isn't effort— it's expectation:
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What expectation are you setting? How are you driving it?