If you want to solve a customer service problem, go and see it.

That's a performance observation. It's a process for observing employees doing their work to understand how they currently do things and what can be improved.

It's a go-to technique for improving performance, designing training, or identifying best practices.

You might worry employees won't be truthful if you observe them. Or perhaps they'll change how they do things just to impress you.

In reality, that rarely happens.

I've conducted over 1,000 performance observations. And ooh boy, I’ve seen and heard a lot! Most employees are brutally honest if you approach them the right way.

Here's my step-by-step guide.

Step 1: Prepare

A little preparation can make your performance observation much more successful.

Start with a specific objective. Here are some common reasons to observe employee performance:

Designing training that reflects how the job is actually done.
Improving performance by looking for obstacles that hinder employees.
Identifying best practices by watching what top performers do.

Next, identify the employee or employees you'd like to observe. The employees you select depend on your objective.

Do you want to observe a mix of top, mid, and bottom performers?
Are there specific employees you want to observe?
Is there a particular process or activity you'd like to see?

If you aren't the boss, be sure to get permission from the employee's boss beforehand. You don't want their leader to be blindsided by you showing up in their work area.

Finally, notify the employee or employees you'd like to observe ahead of time if possible. They should feel comfortable with you being in their workspace and understand why you're there.

I once worked in a contact center where employees were expected to pitch the company credit card to certain customers. Our average acceptance rate was just 5 percent, but an agent named Betty routinely exceeded 40 percent.

So I contacted Betty’s boss to get permission to observe her. Then I scheduled some time to observe Betty’s credit card pitch.

Step 2: Observe

The performance observation itself is generally easy with the right preparation. I've found employees are typically very accommodating and willing to answer questions.

Here are a few tips that can make it go smoothly

Avoid interfering with the employee's work.
Listen and observe carefully. You'll often see things you don't expect.
Ask questions. Avoid making assumptions about why an employee does something a certain way. Get their perspective on it.

Important: Employees tend to be very honest if they understand you're there to listen, observe, and be helpful. However, you might get some resistance if they believe you're there to catch them doing something wrong.

Betty was happy to share with me. In between calls, she explained her process for pitching credit cards and answered my many questions.

The observation revealed insights that I wouldn't have discovered on my own.

For instance, Betty pointed out that she felt the credit card had some features that frequent customers could really benefit from using.

This sincere belief helped her pitch the card with enthusiasm, an enthusiasm I hadn’t seen from other agents. I wondered if a lack of enthusiasm prevented other agents from making pitches.

Betty also had a unique approach to her offer. She’d congratulate customers for being selected to receive the credit card. (The card wasn’t offered to everyone.) I noticed this made customers much more receptive to the pitch.

Step 3: Follow-up

There are a few follow-up activities once you complete your observation.

Validate your observations with other data.
Use what you learned to take action.

After I observed Betty, I reviewed call reports from other agents and confirmed something Betty had shared. Many agents simply weren't offering the credit card at all.

I dug a little deeper and discovered many didn't understand the card's features and benefits. They were wary of the card's high interest rate and didn't feel comfortable pitching it to the customers.

There was also another reason agents didn’t pitch the card: it wasn’t part of the quality assurance process.

These insights helped me create a plan for rapid improvement.

Pitching the credit card was added to the quality assurance process. It would now be a clear job expectation for agents.
Agents received training on Betty’s unique approach along with the credit card’s features and benefits.

The “Betty method” was a hit. Many agents were much more enthusiastic about pitching the card once they understood how it could benefit customers. They also found Betty’s approach fun and easy to use.

The contact center's average credit card acceptance rate soon increased from 5 to 20 percent.

Take Action

I encourage you to conduct a performance observation on your own. You'll likely gain something you can use to improve training, fix a problem, and elevate the team's performance.

This short video recaps the process:

Conducting performance observations from Instructional Design: Needs Analysis by Jeff Toister

Want to go even deeper? My book, Getting Service Right, reveals ten hidden and counterintuitive customer service insights that came from performance observations. You’ll discover: