 |
The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
|
The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Vinitha Meyyur, PhD and Myriam Hamdallah, MS, MPH. National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information, P.O. Box 2345, Rockville, MD 20847, 301-468-2600 Extn:5034, vmeyyur@health.org
The National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information provides service to the public mainly through its 24-7 call center which handles approximately 400,000 calls a year. The outcomes of the service provided by the information specialists at the call center are evaluated through customer satisfaction surveys. However, evaluations geared towards quality assurance in a service oriented setting cannot be made solely on the basis of outcomes but should also involve evaluation of the process of service delivery. The process of service delivery is clearly our “service encounters” with the customer. A process-based evaluation was implemented to evaluate the encounters (live call monitoring) between information specialists and customers at the call center. A 30-item questionnaire with most questions designed on a 5-point likert scale measured different aspects of the information specialists’ performance. Items were designed to evaluate information specialists’ knowledge, adherence to policy guidelines, confidence, organization skills and level of service orientation. The methodology involves an ongoing evaluation of information specialists (once a week) to ensure consistent service to our customers. Supervisors and the training manager conduct the evaluations. Results from this evaluation has provided and will continue to provide valuable information on our process of service delivery which helps management make decisions and also provides immediate feedback to the information specialists for continuous quality improvement. The process of service delivery (customer encounter) determines the outcomes of service delivery (perceptions of the encounter) making it a key element to evaluate.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Quality Assurance, Quality Assurance
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.