Call Center Management Featured Article
Making the Company QA System a Vital Part of Customer-Facing Processes
When it comes to quality assurance programs in the contact center, there are many approaches. Some are more manual and involve listening to calls, and some are more automated and usually employ speech technology to look for specially designated keywords or problematic words and phrases. While different approaches may work for different contact centers, there are some important principles that should underpin any quality assurance program.
For starters, not all calls are created equal. While communications from all customers should be considered important, there are some customers who are critically important to a company. These might be frequent buyers, frequent complainers, beta customers participating in a limited-release product launch or customers who are very likely to take to social media to air grievances or share positive experiences. It’s critical that companies have a way of identifying communications from these movers and shakers for the purpose of quality management and bump them to the top of the evaluation process, according to Chuck Ciarlo, CEO of workforce optimization solutions provider Monet Software.
“While every customer is important, some customer calls are more valuable than others when it comes to quality assurance,” wrote Ciarlo. “Focus on those that expose potential issues with new products or marketing campaigns, or those from the type of customers that are vital to your company’s success. Desktop analytics software can make it easier to locate these calls.”
Analytics are available as a feature with some quality monitoring and assurance solutions on the market today, and they can help companies uncover trends, problems or opportunities that would be otherwise missed to human resources. A good quality assurance solution should also allow companies to take important customer feedback they have collected from the QA process and use it to improve the quality initiative, according to Ciarlo.
“Serving your customers better is the reason to introduce QA – so it makes sense to include their feedback instead of just assuming what they want from your business,” he said. “Review customer satisfaction scores against QA results, and address any gaps or discrepancies. Update customer surveys frequently.”
The resulting quality assurance process may be highly specialized and customized to your organization, which means it may be somewhat complex. In order to ensure that employees are using it to the best of their abilities, ensure that you have a robust training process in place to familiarize existing employees with the system, and that new hires are brought on board with the QA process and instructed why it’s so vital to use it fully. Continual, targeted coaching going forward can ensure that employees are fully versed with the QA system and invested in getting the most out of it.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi