Measure results and improve every week

Why you measure every week

In the previous lessons you took a baseline, introduced a callback process, set up WhatsApp Business and made an appointments and follow-up list. The biggest risk now is that all this slowly fades: the callback list is not updated for a few days, a new employee does not know the labels, and after a busy week everyone falls back into old habits.

Measuring every week prevents that. Not to hold staff accountable, but to see whether the system does what it should: every request gets an answer, everyone who asks for a callback is called back, and nothing stays open unnoticed. In this lesson you:

1. choose a handful of key figures and write down how you count them;
2. fill out a simple scorecard every week, with your baseline for comparison;
3. hold a 15-minute improvement meeting every week in which you choose one improvement;
4. write down your way of working in a service standard, so it does not depend on one person.

The key figures that matter

A small business does not need twenty figures. These nine together tell you enough. They are also called KPIs; in this lesson we call them key figures.

Count unique requests, not messages

The biggest pitfall is double counting. A customer who calls twice and then sends a WhatsApp message about the same question is one request, not three. If you double count, you see more activity and worse percentages than there really are.

• One customer, one question, one request. Repeat messages about the same question do not count again.
• A new question does count again, even if it comes from a customer you already know.
• Spam and wrong numbers do not count.

Avoid figures that only feel good

Some figures rise with activity or effort without the customer gaining anything. They feel good, but they steer you in the wrong direction.

Write down how you count: numerator and denominator

A percentage is only useful if everyone calculates it the same way. For each figure, write down what goes above the line (the numerator) and what goes below it (the denominator), and stick to that definition every week. If you do change one, note it in the scorecard.

Two key figures are a count, not a percentage:

• Open follow-up: what has not been resolved by the end of the week, even if it comes from earlier weeks. Always count at the same time, for example Monday morning before opening.
• Errors and complaints about contact: wrong information given, an appointment double-booked, a customer who was not called back. Complaints about the product or the treatment itself do not belong here.

The channel mix is optional. Calculate it once a month: unique requests through one channel ÷ all unique new requests × 100%.

Filling out your weekly scorecard

The scorecard is one row per week: ten counts and a note. The file works out the percentages itself. With up-to-date lists, filling it out takes about fifteen minutes.

1. Choose a fixed week and a fixed time

   Let a week run from Monday through Sunday. Fill it out at a fixed time, for example Monday morning before opening, and have the same person do it every time.

2. Add your baseline

   Take the week from your customer contact audit (Lesson 1) as the first row, with “Baseline” as the note. If you counted differently then from the definitions above, count again. Otherwise you will end up comparing apples and oranges.

3. Take the counts from your lists

   Requests, resolved and first response from the audit or follow-up list, callbacks from the callback list, appointments from the appointments and follow-up list. Filter by the dates of the week.

4. Count the open follow-up

   At the fixed time, including items from earlier weeks. This number is a snapshot of the end of the week.

5. Write a note

   A holiday, a promotion or advertisement, an employee out sick, a broken phone, a new way of working. Without a note, two months from now you will no longer know why a week was different.

6. Look at the trend, not at one week

   Compare with the baseline and with the previous three weeks. Only after four to six weeks can you see whether something is really changing.

Baseline versus now: comparing fairly

After a few weeks you will want to know whether it works. Compare the baseline with the weeks after the changes, and be honest about what the figures do and do not tell you.

What you can conclude

Process figures such as % resolved, callback rate and open follow-up depend mainly on what you do yourself. If they improve right after you introduce a callback list or fixed follow-up, and stay that way, it is reasonable to assume the new way of working helps.

Why more appointments are not automatically due to your approach

The number of appointments or orders depends on much more than your customer contact. Go through these causes before you credit a rise to your way of working:

• Always look at both the count and the percentage.
• Change as little as possible at once, so you can tell better what helps.
• Compare three to four weeks after the change with the baseline, not one good week.

The 15-minute improvement meeting

Figures alone change nothing. So hold a short, fixed meeting every week, ideally right after the scorecard has been filled out. Standing behind the counter or on a video call: what matters is the fixed structure, not the place.

Roles

The agenda, minute by minute

1. Review the figures (3 minutes)

   The scorekeeper gives this week's figures next to last week's and the baseline. Only discuss notable differences, not every number.

2. Sample of cases (5 minutes)

   Look at three to five real requests from the lists, for example an escalation, a late response and an item that is still open. For each case, ask: what happened, and where did it get stuck?

3. Choose one bottleneck (3 minutes)

   Choose the bottleneck that comes up most often or affects customers most. One, even if you see five. Note the rest for another time.

4. Assign an improvement (3 minutes)

   Small, concrete and with one owner. Not “pay more attention,” but “make a quick reply for the question about prices and show it to everyone on Friday.”

5. Set a review date (1 minute)

   Usually the meeting one or two weeks later. Write the decision in the improvement log. If a topic needs more time, schedule a separate time for it: the weekly meeting stays at fifteen minutes, otherwise it gets skipped after a few weeks.

Write down your way of working in a service standard

Everything you introduced in this course only works as long as people know about it. A service standard is a one- or two-page document that sets out how your business handles customer contact: who answers, how quickly you respond, what happens to a missed call, when something goes to the owner. You give it to every new employee and every backup.

• Short: the details are in your scripts, quick replies and lists; the standard refers to them.
• Concrete: times and roles, not “as soon as possible,” because you cannot measure that.
• Made together: discuss the draft with the team. What nobody thinks is achievable will not happen in practice anyway.
• Dated: with a version date and a date when you will look at it again, for example every quarter.

Keeping it going yourself: the next 30 days

You now know all the parts: a baseline, a phone and callback process, WhatsApp Business, an appointments and follow-up list, a scorecard and a fixed meeting. Not everything in place yet? The 30-day plan turns the whole course into four weeks, with the tasks for each week, who does them, how long they take and how you can tell it works.

If everything is already running, the next 30 days are about keeping it going:

Warning signs

• The scorecard has not been filled out for two weeks in a row.
• Open follow-up grows three weeks in a row.
• The same bottleneck keeps coming back in the meeting, without the improvement being carried out.
• The meeting is skipped more often than it is held.

If you see one of these signs, make the system smaller rather than giving up on it: fewer figures and a shorter meeting, but every week.

If you later want to automate repetitive work, with whatever tool, only start once the way of working is written down and works. Your service standard then describes what needs to happen, and your scorecard shows whether the tool really helps.

Have you worked through all five lessons? Complete the course and keep the customer service playbook, with all the lessons, scripts and checklists on one page.

Checklist for this lesson

Downloads for this lesson

Test your knowledge

What to do now

• Fill out the scorecard today with your baseline from Lesson 1, and put the first improvement meeting on the calendar.
• Write a draft of your service standard this week and discuss it with the team.
• Follow the 30-day plan week by week.
• Complete the course once you have worked through all the lessons.