De-Villainizing QA Scorecards with Hims & Hers Customer Service

Rebuilding the Relationship: Transforming Quality Assurance from Adversary to Collaborator

As a customer service provider, Hims & Hers is dedicated to creating a human-inclusive and effortless customer experience. The company's values align with personalized support and building trust with customers, particularly in sensitive topics such as mental health and sexual health. To ensure that their agents provide exceptional customer service, the company relies on its Quality Assurance (QA) team, led by Salmeen Majid, CX Quality Assurance Supervisor, to ensure consistency, accuracy, and efficiency.

However, upon joining the QA team, Salmeen quickly discovered that front-line agents or "the floor" had a negative perception of the team, viewing them as the "villains" who harshly graded their performance using subjective scorecards and pointed out their mistakes. “Our agents' emotions are tied to their QA score, so it was critical that we remedy the situation,” she stated. She realized that the Quality Assurance team needed to rebuild the relationship with the floor and empower them to provide exceptional customer service.

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QA Scorecards for Call Centers

First, let’s get into the weeds on what QA scorecards actually do. QA scorecards are essential tools for call centers to assess agent performance systematically. These scorecards contain predefined evaluation criteria that align with desired customer service standards. By using scorecards, supervisors can consistently measure agent interactions, identify strengths, and pinpoint areas for improvement. This data-driven approach enhances customer experiences and ensures uniform quality assurance across the call center. Visit our Scorecard Builder to customize your own call center QA scorecards. 

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Standardizing the Grading System: Objectivity, Consistency, and Productive Feedback

To achieve this, Salmeen began standardizing the grading system with MaestroQA to make it more objective, ensuring consistent feedback, and building a positive and productive relationship with the floor. One of the ways Salmeen achieved this for the Hims & Hers customer service team was by having graders consistently grading the same agents week after week, which allowed her team to identify patterns in agents' performance and provide targeted and effective feedback. Salmeen and her team also held regular team calibrations, used data-driven insights to identify areas for improvement, and measured alignment in the way they approached scorecard questions. Salmeen also audited her analysts' audits every week using Maestro’s GraderQA tool to provide feedback and improve alignment over time.

In the quality assurance field, creating objective scorecards that accurately reflect customer experience while avoiding "double-dipping" and ensuring a clear distinction between criteria is a significant challenge. To address this, Salmeen's team is holding bi-weekly calibration sessions to fine-tune the scorecard's questions and interpretations. Furthermore, they are introducing a new "non-scoring" section to focus on internal processes and implementing "root-cause analysis" checkboxes to gather more data on agent coaching areas of opportunity. They are also preparing a knowledge resource with clear examples of positive customer interactions and tips and tricks for agents to tailor their solutions to each customer's unique situation.

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Empowering Agents for Exceptional Customer Service: Creating a Clear Path to Success with Objective Scorecards

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Salmeen emphasizes that the scorecard should be objective and clear to ensure that agents have a clear path to follow. Her Hims & Hers customer service team is working on creating distinct bullet points that are measurable and objective as possible. Additionally, they are contemplating separating categories like "internal processes" from "effortless experience" to make the scorecard more precise and eliminate any ambiguity.

Salmeen and her team are utilizing this new scorecard to highlight the significance of critical thinking and tailoring solutions to each customer's unique situation. They recognize that processes can be restrictive, and agents need to be able to navigate the gray areas and be inventive in finding solutions.

By focusing on continuous improvement and providing support to agents, Salmeen and her Hims & Hers customer service team are working to transform the perception of Quality Assurance from adversary to collaborator. They aim to establish a culture of collaboration and learning where agents feel empowered to provide the best possible customer experience.

Salmeen stated in the interview, "We're not here to criticize; we're here to support. We want to ensure that everyone is doing the best job they can, and we want to equip them with the tools to do so."

To make QA more approachable and effective, it's essential to involve agents in the process, standardize feedback, and celebrate successes. Quality teams play a critical role in improving customer experience, and their work should be perceived positively by agents. Utilizing tools like MaestroQA's AI classifiers can streamline the Quality Assurance process and provide agents with objective feedback.

In conclusion, QA doesn't have to be a negative or villainous aspect of customer service. By emphasizing its importance and creating a scorecard that agents and analysts alike can trust, Quality Assurance can transform into a positive and collaborative force that fosters growth and excellence within customer service teams. Salmeen and her team are dedicated to creating objective scorecards and empowering agents to enhance their own performance, working towards a more positive work environment where agents can provide exceptional service.

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‍Want to learn more? 

Check out the full recording of our chat with Hims & Hers, and if you would like to learn more about what MaestroQA can do for your business, please request a demo today.

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