Quality Monitoring the Customer Experience is an Ongoing Job

You show your customers you value them in many ways. You make it part of your tag (News - Alert) line, and perhaps even your company’s business statement. You write it in your annual report. You state it in your advertising. You hope that you’ve built a reputation for valuing customers. Unfortunately, stating it isn’t enough. According to your customers, the only real way to show you value them is by providing great customer experiences at the contact center level.

A recent Aspect (News - Alert) Consumer Experience Survey found that more than three quarters (76 percent) of customers see customer service as the true test of how much your organization values them. This means it’s not enough to tell them…you need to show them you value them every day, in every interaction. This is accomplished by putting quality customer experiences in place and continuing to monitor and measure quality to ensure you’re doing the job right.

Continuous quality monitoring is a multi-pronged project. You need to have the right processes and people in place and remove the road blocks to good customer service. You need to identify the right metrics to measure, and follow them obsessively. It also helps to put a continuous quality monitoring program in place, according to a recent blog post by BPA Quality. The advantages of using an external service to measure quality are compelling.

“If you are looking to have total control over the quality program and to have analysts available to answer calls during high call volume, then an internal team may be your choice,” wrote the blogger. “From my many conversations with call center leaders, they have complained that quality wasn’t being done because the analysts were pulled to help manage call queues. Since evaluations were not being done, then the agents were not being provided proper coaching.”

Internal monitoring for quality also opens up the possibility of favoritism among managers, which can sink agent morale and call the results into question. (Remember, it doesn’t matter if managers think they’re offering a high quality customer experience; it’s what customers think that counts.)

Likewise, foreign outsourcing of quality can lead to cultural misunderstanding, a lack of accountability and a lot of guesswork. (Did we go with the right foreign outfit? Are they doing what they said they would? Are they listening for the right elements for an excellent customer experience for American customers?)

The BPA blogger notes that pro-sourcing quality monitoring can help hit the right notes and cultural tone, which may not be possible with offshore suppliers. Likewise, it can provide you with expertise as well as objectivity that managers and supervisors may not have.

“Listening to calls for quality is not a skill that everyone possesses,” wrote the blogger. “It takes expertise in listening and analyzing calls for hours.  Uncovering business intelligence to help a company reach their goals and needs are all part of a pro-sourcing relationship.  Since most pro-sourcing quality companies are located where your customers live, it is capable of understanding the culture and even regionalism of your customers.”

Third-party call monitoring specialists can listen live, or they can listen to your company’s recorded calls. You can work with them to determine what represents quality for your organization, and customize your program. When every call or contact your organization makes or takes leads to the furtherance of a great customer journey, you can really start to believe your own taglines that you value your customers. 

Edited by Alicia Young

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