Measuring Quality: Auditing DBA Customer Service

Quality is an essential aspect of Datavail’s services. Without a consistently high customer service level that meets or exceeds client expectations, our services are indistinguishable from those of other database service providers.

We at Datavail talk about quality a great deal because it is essential to our business. We take it very seriously. Some people may contend that achieving quality is an elusive goal because quality can be subjective. But, we apply Six Sigma principles across our business.

Six Sigma is a framework designed to ensure that a process meets specific quality standards. It seeks to scientifically quantify processes and procedures to eliminate variability. It is applicable across a wide range of enterprises, from manufacturing high-quality durable goods, or providing an exceptional customer service experience.

Auditing Process

One of the key frameworks within Six Sigma is known as DMAIC: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control.

How do we apply the DMAIC framework? Through auditing two essential interactions our database administrators have with our customers: phone calls and tickets.

Any call to Datavail generates a ticket. From a sampling of those tickets, we perform our quality analysis. We define quality concisely and measure 11 parameters to determine call quality, and apply another nine parameters to ticket processing. Each of these parameters applies to a specific skill. Database administrators are expected to excel at each of these parameters, showing they are equipped and able to properly handle every client interaction professionally.

Although there are various objectives associated with quality auditing, our primary target is maintaining and improving the quality of our service. We use information both from single audits and from aggregating a series of audits to determine how our methods and operating procedures are working in actual practice over time.

Each parameter or skill is weighted according to its importance. On a phone call, for example, the most important factors are the opening of the call, listening skills, and language accuracy. More points are, naturally, assigned to these tasks. The total score is assessed against a maximum possible score. The higher the score, the better the database administrator is performing.

Room for Improvement

Another key part of the process is identifying areas in which our database administrators can improve. If we identify an area for improvement, we provide database administrators with additional training to support and bolster their skills.

We continually evaluate and monitor interactions to be certain any training or changes in policy are effective, and that results are maintained. The process is continual and iterative.

In other words, the process of ensuring our clients have an excellent customer service experience is made possible with frequent, ongoing auditing or measurement of our employees’ performance.

To learn more about our process we employ to ensure top-notch customer service you can read more in our recent white papers – Quality Auditing for Service Call Processing and Quality Auditing for Ticket Processing.

If you are interested in learning more about our quality metrics, as well as the range of database support services available, please contact Datavail to discuss a custom, quality solution for your enterprise.