Anonymous Evaluations Team Initiative

Hi All!

I wanted to post each announcement under a category called Announcements, but it would've gotten too messy with everyone replying to each announcement in the same thread, so I will be making them all separately.

Secret Shoppers are a popular quality tool that businesses often use. They go into the store, and then they buy items while evaluating the service. Once upon a time back in 2016, 7cups had an Anonymous Evaluations Team that would evaluate listeners to identify which could use some training (not because they were "bad", but they were new and inexperienced), and which people were here for reasons that don't fit with the site's mission.

We've been wanting to restart it for many years, but due to various reasons, were unable to. Quality Track leadership team and I are proud to say we will be restarting this initiative. We may call it Secret Shoppers instead as more people know what that is, but the name is flexible. It will restart once we get all the pieces in place.

I've created a draft of what I'd like to do. The basic run down this:

1. We will make it part of the Quality Track projects, so those who apply for Quality Mentor/Teen Quality Star and are accepted can sign up to join. They will have to do a certain amount per week for this project to be effective.

1. Team member reaches out to a non-verified listener via personal request and does a pretend chat of medium dificulty based on a topic from their profile. It would last about 20 minutes.

2. They would evaluate based on criteria such as did they respond, empathy, professonalism, giving advice, etc. Those that are here for the wrong reasons would get reported to admin. Those that are just inexperienced, but genuine, would be informed they were evaluated.

3. The listener would be paired with a quality mentor to do skill building.

Here's where I am getting stuck, and I need your help as a community. I am not sure how to best relay the evaluation infomation in a non-punitive way. I feel like a email might be too cold, but I also know receiving feedback that you need to improve can be difficult and hurt. I want there to be a way to balance compassionate feedback with the reality that every listener (including myself) has areas they can improve in to be more effective as a listener. We're all growing and that's okay. It doesn't make us a "bad" listener.

All feedback is appreciated, and if you have other ideas you think might be good for this, please feel free to share!

That being said, please keep in mind three things:

1. I am new. I've been here less than week in an admin role, so I'm still learning. This won't be perfect right off the bat. It's a draft, and it can be tweaked and changed. I am putting it out to the community because I think communication and transparency goes a long way, and I want this to be something that works. More brains means more ideas that I might not have thought of. We'll start the project once we have all the pieces in place.

2. Please try to keep any negative feedback constructive. I have noticed some forum posts receive feedback that looks like "That's a stupid idea", and that is not very helpful feedback. I'm doing my best to learn the ropes and plan ideas that will benefit the community openly and transparently. Tactful constructive criticism is always more valuable. If you post a criticism, please also add a solution that you think might work better.

3. I may not be able to use all the feedback received. It just depends on what fits together. I still appreciate all of it and may be able to incorporate an idea in the future.

Thank you for your time everyone, and i look forward from hearing from you!

Edit: A lot of great ideas have been brought up! A good point that was brought up is what kind of reward could we give for doing a good job. The idea of a Verified Listener badge (if they meet criteria) or leaving a review as a "reward" is intriguing. Please let me know if you think of any ideas for that.