Tracking Metric

In order to understand what is happening in your organization and have an impact, you need to track and measure the events. In most cases, policy dollars do not tell the entire story. You need to create a tracking device that records when there is an incident; what the root cause of the incident was, and as a bare minimum what the final outcome was. The tracking metric can be categorized by department or general area. The reason for having a tracking metric is to find the point where conflict occurs and identify it. A tracking metric can be initiated in one of three ways:

1. Simple Spreadsheet.
2. Database.
3. Create an application or program within your business system.

Anytime someone takes steps to rectify a situation, it should automatically trigger the "tracking metric." The "tracking metric" will act as a segue into:

• Understanding the "Nature of the Event"
• Identifying a potential "Teaching Component"
• Identifying the "Root Cause of the Conflict"
• Identifying the "Opportunity for Improvement"

Examples of what data elements a metric should track and why are listed below:

1. Date:  This helps track a log of instances that can be pulled within a given time period.
2. Reference Document Repair Order or Invoice Number:  This is the document that will have all of the detail such as time stamps, parts used, complaint/cause/correction details, invoice totals and warranty repairs.
3. Point of Contention:  This will give the detail of the conflict and the cause per the customer.
4. Customer:  This will tell which customer was involved.
5. Department:  This will show which part of the organization contributed to the conflict.
6. Employee:  This will help identify if conflicts are driven by one specific person or persons.
7. Process or Function Involved:  This can be used to identify the specific conflict and point where a process may have failed in a service provider's organization.
8. Resolution/Outcome:  This identifies how a situation was handled and can act as a "safety valve." For example: "Is the service provider automatically just doing something so the problem goes away?" This will also show how many times a specific solution was used. It also helps to identify those employees who excel at handling conflict and use their knowledge to implement company wide changes.

Once an organization has established a means of tracking this information, it is important to know what to do with this information once its gathered. Effective managers will do the following with this information:

• Evaluate the data, looking for trends.
• Identify opportunities for improvement.
• Use the data as a teaching tool.
• Communicate to the "team" about how a given situation was handled.
• Use the data within the context of a management performance tool.
• Measure customer satisfaction.
• Improve company profits.
• Enforce company culture of "best in class" service.