You’ve just wrapped a call. You thought it was decent, maybe even great. Clear next steps. Good rapport. No major issues.
Then your teammate, on the same call, gives it a 5/10.
You’re staring at their notes wondering: Did we even attend the same meeting?
That’s what happens when there’s no calibration.
In growing teams, especially those juggling sales, success, and support across time zones, evaluating the quality of calls is crucial. But when everyone’s scoring based on their own standards, your data becomes noise. There’s no alignment. No shared baseline. No way to trust the feedback loop.
You end up managing feelings and not performance.
Why alignment matters
When scores mean different things to different people, they’re useless.
Imagine two managers using the same 1–10 scale. One thinks an 8 means “room for improvement.” The other sees it as a badge of excellence. Multiply that confusion across a 15 person team scattered across 5 cities, and suddenly your data isn’t just inconsistent, it’s dangerous.
Why? Because you’re making decisions based on it.
- You’re promoting reps.
- You’re flagging calls for review.
- You’re adjusting your onboarding playbook.
And it’s all built on sand.
Call evaluation alignment isn’t just about being fair. It’s about creating a shared reality your team can work from. One where feedback isn’t subjective. One where expectations are understood and measurable.
What misalignment looks like in practice
- Two managers watch the same recording. One flags it for follow up training. The other approves it as a model example.
- Sales reps are confused about what “good” even means.
- New hires get conflicting feedback, and don’t improve as fast as they should.
- Leadership gets evaluation dashboards full of conflicting numbers and inconsistent tags.
- Nobody trusts the scorecards.
At best, this slows your team down. At worst, it breeds confusion, demotivation, and missed opportunities.
Where teams get it wrong
- Scoring without shared definitions
Teams often have evaluation criteria, like “rapport” or “clarity of next steps”, but no clear, agreed upon examples of what a 3 looks like vs a 9. - No continuous calibration
Even if your team starts aligned, standards drift. Especially with new hires. Without regular calibration exercises, everyone reverts to their own preferences. - Using static forms for dynamic conversations
Checklists don’t capture nuance. Calls are fluid. If your scoring sheet doesn’t flex to context – discovery vs support vs crisis – your evaluations won’t reflect reality. - Relying on memory
If people are scoring based on what they remember, not what they hear, it’s game over. Everyone remembers different parts. Nobody remembers the tone.
How to fix it: Aligning in real life
- Create anchor clips
Pick real calls and annotate them together. What makes this a 5? Why is this a 9? Discuss until there’s consensus. Save those examples in a shared knowledge base. They become your anchors. - Run blind calibration sessions
Play the same call to different team members. Have them score it independently. Compare results. Where scores diverge, dig into why. Is it expectations? Interpretation? Clarity of the rubric? - Redesign your rubric
Every item on your scorecard should come with:
- A simple definition
- A scale (1 – 5 or 1 – 10)
- Clear, practical examples for low, medium, and high scores
Remove anything vague or overly subjective. “Good energy” means nothing unless it’s defined.
- Add a feedback layer
Scorecards aren’t just numbers. Add a comment box after each section. Force evaluators to explain why they gave that score. It surfaces reasoning, and patterns. - Use real time evaluation tools
Tools like Insight7 let you evaluate calls in context. Pull up themes, categorize pain points, map emotional tones, all automatically. This reduces bias, speeds up the process, and creates shared baselines across teams. - Review the reviewers
Just like calls get evaluated, so should evaluations. Set a cadence – monthly or quarterly – where you review how consistent scoring is across the team. Tighten gaps as needed.
Where Insight7 fits in
Manual calibration takes time. And in fast moving teams, speed matters.
Insight7’s evaluation removes the bottlenecks by automating the hard parts, like surfacing repeated issues across calls, identifying which reps need attention, and standardizing evaluation criteria across the board.
It doesn’t just help you score faster. It helps you score better.
With suggested themes and alignment triggers, teams spend less time debating and more time improving.
It’s the difference between “we think this call was off” and “here’s why it was off, backed by consistent patterns across 20+ conversations.”
Make calibration part of your culture
Don’t treat calibration like a one off project. It’s not a checkbox.
Build it into your team rituals:
- Include a calibration session in onboarding.
- Schedule monthly reviews of evaluation examples.
- Celebrate when alignment improves, just like you would for hitting sales targets.
If your team knows that calibration matters as much as performance, they’ll treat it seriously.
The cost of poor alignment isn’t just operational. It’s cultural.
People don’t just want feedback. They want clarity.
Give it to them.
