Two KPI Principles that Helped Us Increase Our Performance by 200%
Tags: Business Development, Kpi, Business, Skyeng Global, Edtech

by Yulia Filippova, co-founder & Chief Commercial Officer at skyeng.es

KPIs at every stage and the secret of succeeding in new markets

KPIs help evaluate a business’ performance, both overall and in specific areas. This is particularly relevant for a start-up. The metrics allow you to see the full picture and note the degree to which your results match your ambitious goals.

KPIs are the most effective tool for making realistic forecasts: you can see the areas where you need to make an effort or correct your strategy. Plus, KPIs are useful in evaluating the performance of your employees who become focused on their achievement and get an understanding of their value for the company as the incentive program becomes more transparent.

Finally, KPIs are particularly crucial during expansion into foreign markets, with all their variables: your product or marketing may not be relevant for the consumer, you may be unfamiliar with the local clients’ mentality. The solution: to set precise KPIs at every stage of the sales funnel and track them closely.

In our project, KPIs are assigned to even the most basic funnel stages, from the effectiveness of a particular idea to the productivity of a particular employee. The team focuses on the entire customer journey from the moment of seeing an ad to the moment of purchase.

For instance, first we launched a project in Spain. Then we decided to scale it up to the Hispanic population of the U.S. We set identical KPIs for the American project but achieved only middling results.

Following an extensive analysis of which metrics “sank” and where it happened, we decided to intensify and optimize a number of operational processes. Our results almost tripled! How did we know what to change? It was obvious thanks to the precise metrics at every stage of the funnel.

How KPIs impact team performance

KPIs also help when it comes to the individual performances of employees. Here’s a real-life example: we have an employee who showed great productivity in the Spanish market. Meanwhile, those doing the same job in the American market showed results that were only half as good. We invited the successful employee to work in the lagging department — and he did as great a job in the U.S. as he had done in Spain. Our conclusion? It’s not about the audience, it’s about the qualification of the staff.

Working with the KPIs of line employees, I make use of two principles:

Ambitious but achievable goals. The understanding of how realistic a goal is comes from the team’s awareness of how the others are performing. We regularly post everyone’s results, making it clear for people that if another person could do something, they can do it too

No more than three KPIs. If there are more, it will be difficult to track them all. In this format, employees are always aware of how their work is assessed, what they are responsible for, and how they can achieve strong results according to the metrics. The crucial thing is to make sure the KPIs are understood — and, if it’s unclear to the employee where certain numbers come from, to explain how their performance impacts the company’s success.

By introducing these two policies in a Spanish call center while retaining the staff, we managed to increase the number of intro lessons by 200%.