February 14, 2023

10 Call Center Quality Assurance Best Practices – Call Criteria

Call Center Quality Assurance Best Practices

Maintaining a healthy relationship with your consumers and a solid reputation among your clientele depends on whether your call center offers them high-quality help or not. That is why every business must have a strong call center QA framework. The contact center quality assurance unit has one objective: how to enhance the efficiency of a call center? 

So let’s read about important aspects like what call center quality assurance is, how it might benefit your call center, how it differs from quality control, and the challenges it may face. You will also learn about its frameworks, software components, and top call center quality assurance tips. 

Let’s begin. 

What is Call Center Quality Assurance? 

In call centers, quality assurance (QA) is a process that makes sure you’re operating in accordance with the standards of your business. This is accomplished by keeping track of the team and grading them according to the key performance indicators (usually known as KPIs) you’ve established. You must ensure that your KPIs are in line with your specific goals because different businesses have different aims. Some businesses also refer to it as “quality management.” 

Why is QA important in a call center? 

Do you know why QA is important in a call center? Every call center needs quality assurance because it enables businesses to continuously enhance their customer service. Let’s examine how call center managed QA can improve overall operations. 

Strengthens the support team: QA aids in identifying areas for team improvement and enables you to strategically plan training and coaching sessions. 

Improves the customer experience: The call center will be able to help your clients more effectively when you have a stronger team. It gives you benefits like better customer interactions and increased retention rates. 

Refine business goals & processes: With consistent call center quality assurance, you will be able to anticipate the specific requirements of your clients, and modify your business methods and goals accordingly. 

Quality Control (QC) vs. Quality Assurance (QA) 

Do you know the differences between QM, QA, and QC? Quality control and assurance are tactical, check-the-box assessments of procedures, whereas quality management refers to the larger, more comprehensive themes, trends, and methods for risk assessment inside a business. 

And whereas quality control concentrates on error prevention, contact center quality assurance typically focuses on how procedures are carried out or services are delivered, like call center a Top 5 Tips to Improve Call Center Quality Control agent performance. Typically, this is done through the development and continuous assessment of QC policies. 

Your contact center’s quality assurance department will typically have a “checklist” of criteria to measure services against. For instance, script compliance and client success would be KPIs in a call center. 

On the other hand, quality control is concentrated on the assessment and management of the quality of products, typically during the development phase. Instead of determining what checks should be performed, it concentrates on fixing issues like product flaws and is concerned with conducting a quality audit and taking remedial action. 

Overlaying both, quality management examines how quality standards might be defined and upheld. 

Challenges of Contact Center Quality Assurance? 

Call center QA is a crucial part of any business and comes with its own set of challenges. Here are a few issues that QA experts and compliance managers frequently come across when performing quality inspections. 

• A massive volume of data 
• data interpretation error 
• The time required to listen to and assess calls, emails, and chats 
• Agents who value their privacy may object. 
• Ineffective software that is out of date and lacks useful characteristics 

Call Center Quality Assurance Frameworks 

With the use of a call center quality assurance framework, you can monitor and evaluate the performance data of agents based on predetermined criteria. 

There are three frames; however, they are not exclusive of one another. 

It is advisable to use the combination of all three at various levels of the call center’s operations for the best QA management. 

Operational QA 

The operational framework is the area where most firms start their QA program because it is the simplest way to begin measuring your everyday procedures. 

Consistency is key to the operational QA framework that includes: 

• The performance of call center agents is often evaluated. 
• QA is used to find out which agents require additional training. 
• Achieving a monthly score quota. 

• Doing reviews on a monthly basis. 

However, as this framework only applies at the micro level, long-term development is challenging to attain. 

Tactical QA 

To see the bigger picture, the tactical framework examines monthly or yearly data. 

This mid-level procedure gives the following preference, with a focus on expansion and scalability: 

• Increasing client retention 
• Investing in the coaching of the agents to lower churn 
• Investigating the primary reasons behind bad customer service 
• Pointing out knowledge deficiencies 

• Locating workflows that are faulty 

Improve the level of service provided by your QA staff necessitates strategic planning and vision. The impacts might not be felt right away, and the solutions might include restructuring and, if required, retraining the agents. 

Strategic QA  

This framework is initiated at the highest level of the organization. Its main objective is to ensure that your call center personnel are in line with your company’s overall goals, and contributing to the improvement of your net promoter score (NPS) is your top priority. Your NPS gauges how devoted and inclined clients are to refer others to do business with you. 

Here is what a strategic approach focuses on to enhance your NPS: 

• What are the goals of the business? How does customer service suitable for business goals? 
• How can we use customer service to enhance the loyalty of the customer and the brand’s reputation? 
• How is employee success measured and recognized in the call center? 

The aforementioned questions describe the culture, norms, and objectives of the company. Thus, a strategic QA framework is utilized to identify long-term fixes for problems that affect the entire organization. 

Software Components for Contact Center Quality Assurance 

Although end-to-end tracking is a feature that the majority of these systems offer, it’s not the only one you should be looking for in a QA solution. You should pick one that has the majority of the elements listed below. 

Call Recording 

Most call center recording software has the ability to record all phone calls, including inbound and outbound calls, making it the most popular way of conducting QA reviews. You can use the system to playback such recordings at a later time for analysis and research. 

Modern call recording software offers screen recording options in addition to voice call recording. Before using the software, make sure the call center is in conformity with regulatory authorities like the PCI DSS. It becomes more crucial when working with sensitive banking data. 

Data-Driven Call Center Quality Control 

Automation and analytical tools are driven by artificial intelligence can offer useful information about client behavior. The analytics include desktop monitoring, live monitoring, speech analytics, sentiment analysis, and metadata integration. The analytics help add layers to the QA process that let you assess the efficiency of agents. 

Post-Call Customer Survey 

One of the best ways to learn about how your customers view your brand and how they interact with your customer care team is through surveys. Implementing consumer suggestions for improvement can significantly increase client retention. Additionally, these surveys can add a new perspective to reviews of agents. 

 

With the help of the surveys, you can get a 360-degree view of all the interactions with customers from all perspectives. This lets you measure and find out your call center managed QA scores effortlessly. But what if they are low? Well, there are some particular ways to enhance the QA scores. 

Top 10 Call Center Quality Assurance Tips 

Enhancing quality assurance in a call center is a continuous procedure rather than a one-and-done method.  

Let’s look at ten simple tips to improve the call center-managed QA. 

1. Develop QA Strategy 

Without defined benchmarks and quality guidelines in place, it is impossible to monitor your agents’ performance accurately. 

Specify what excellent customer service entails and how you plan to gauge it using particular criteria. 

Some call center metrics that are commonly used. 

• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) 
• First Call Resolution (FCR) 
• Average Handling Time (AHT) 

• Net Promoter Score (NPS) 

To ensure continual improvement, you should review these statistics every week. 

2. Designate QA Evaluator 

After choosing a course of action, you should designate a quality assurance manager who can oversee your call center-managed QA directly. A lack of accountability and confusion may result from unclear positions. However, putting someone or a team in charge of the QA procedure might make everything run more smoothly. 

3. Monitor All Customer Support Channels 

If you provide omnichannel support, you undoubtedly have agents who specialize in live chat, phone support, social media, and other channels. Each of these dimensions needs its own quality control system. 

The call center-managed QA metrics you employ will change in accordance with the differences in client expectations and, consequently, the experience across channels. You can get a general view of the issue by monitoring all help channels cautiously. You can provide agent coaching sessions if the quality of the service is inconsistent across all channels. 

4. Hire Well & Train Regularly 

One of the best ways to boost the effectiveness of your call center QA is to hire staff members who are dedicated to constant development. To help agents advance, managers and supervisors must first be prepared with the necessary skill sets. 

Additionally, you must ensure every agent receives regular, consistent training on how to deal with actual customer interactions. You can use previously captured client calls for this. To deliver top-notch customer service, you should update your training programs from time to time with advice from a QA specialist. 

5. Involve Agents When Making QA Checklist  

Having your agents participate in the QA procedure gives them a sense of ownership over it. Additionally, as they are on the front lines, so they could provide ideas for new QA techniques and ways to track the quality of their work. Developing a process together also promotes teamwork and camaraderie, which results in a great work atmosphere. 

6. Promote Self-Monitoring  

Self-evaluations are a reliable method of performance management. Agents can analyze the day without feeling rushed. When the calls are still fresh in the memories of the agents at the end of the day, encourage them to perform a self-review. Agents that are diligent about increasing their production can benefit from these minor adjustments. 

Additionally, request that agents practice calls with one another. This will enable them to connect and exchange advice on how to handle particular situations. 

7. Outsource Call Center Managed QA 

Many call centers prefer to outsource their QA because it gives a much better result. Experts believe that in-house QA agents can be biased and inaccurate, which can hold your company back from achieving maximum coverage and top performance. 

By outsourcing the service, you can get quick and accurate data. As a result, it becomes a lot easier for you to understand which agents and calls are performing the best. That can increase sales and customer service because you can focus where you need to. 

8. Give Constructive Feedback 

Employees often quit their jobs because they experience excessive criticism and monitoring. Focusing on positive and constructive criticism is an excellent way to reduce agent turnover. The agents are aware of their shortcomings and how to grow when criticism is presented in a positive manner. Employees are more receptive to constructive criticism when they receive good feedback. 

9. Share Real-Time Statistics with the Team 

Be open and transparent with the customer support team about their assessments, the procedures used to conduct those assessments, and the ways in which they are developing. 

Your staff members will be more committed to the business when they realize that their efforts result in measurable progress. As employee engagement is directly related to higher employee productivity, it will lead to higher CSAT scores and improved customer service. 

10. Reward Your Agents  

Another way you can encourage your agents is by appreciating and rewarding their performance. Such programs can help the agents feel valued, which can enhance their performance. Create prizes and bonuses around QA areas where the entire team could use a boost. These advancements can also be incorporated into the employee’s evaluation form, and if they maintain it consistently, they may be eligible for paid time off or a bonus. 

By doing this, you may encourage healthy competition, reward your agents’ accomplishments, and enhance the satisfaction level of clients. 

Take Away 

Call center quality assurance focuses on improving the customer experience by analyzing the performance of your agents. If you want to enhance the QA of your call center, first you need to understand that entire concept. The aforementioned information and quality assurance tips will help you keep your customers happy and grow your call center.