While in Hawaii over Christmas, my son’s girlfriend was complaining that she didn’t know how to measure instructor performance at her yoga studio. I said, “it’s easy, every time a client is leaving your studio, ask them, “on a scale of 1-10 how was your overall experience today?”” If they reply with less than 8, you’ve got a problem and you need to ask more questions. She said it sounded too simple and  was afraid the clients would feel harassed.

At that point, I went around our table and asked everyone to give a rating out of 10 on the restaurant where we just finished out meals. All the scores were above 9. Funny enough, I chose the restaurant because it was rated above 4.6/5 (or 9.2) by both Yelp and Trip Advisor. Then, I asked a table of 9 next to us if they would rate their experience. Each stranger gave me a number above 9. I asked if they felt “harassed”. The answer was no, and the assessment took about 20 seconds to complete.

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“So, how do you measure a receptionist?” I was once asked. That’s easy, I said. Once a month the manager responsible for that seat calls 4 good customers and asks them, “on a scale of 1 to 10, when being greeted, how was your experience when you called in or came in to the office?” The receptionist has some explaining to do when the number is below 8 on average. If your company has a receptionist with no measures, and mine is measured as described, which receptionist is paying more attention to how people are greeted?

For every position in your company all it takes is one number for people to start paying attention, begin making comparisons, and to start self-improving. Keep it simple and easy. When a company calls me to do a “survey”, I say no thank you. When my cell phone company sends me a text to respond with 1 to 10 on how they handled a customer service call, I text a number back. And if it’s below 8, it means that I’m not that impressed with their service. 

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