Call Center QA Featured Article
December 07, 2009
What Parameters to Set When Monitoring Agents Calls
After last week’s discussion on why outsourcing for companies looking to implement a call monitoring system is a must, it’s evident that enlisting the assistance of a company like 3rd party remote call monitoring provider BPA International and its services, operations will run smoother and goals can be met at a more accurate pace.
However, while many companies, industry experts and market analysts discuss how important call monitoring is for a company’s life cycle, it’s seldom that anyone really touches on the specifics of what a company actually monitors.
What’s more, because there are so many rules and regulations regarding what can be monitored and in what context, what a company monitor’s matters to many individuals, including companies affected and regulators that monitor them.
According to BPA’s CEO Lisa Renda, call center monitoring is a discipline that is driven strongly by metrics. Every action in a call center measured on either a quantitative or qualitative standard, and monitoring can be done the same way, however, on different levels.
“In a rapidly growing company, it is probably unrealistic to measure a large number of complex parameters,” Renda told TMCnet in a previous interview. “It is far more reasonable to keep the number of criteria to a minimum, especially in a call center where new agents are coming on board on a continuous basis.”
For companies just starting to monitor calls as a way to improve operations, over analyzing and trying to measure more factors than feasible often confuse management and produce an over abundance of data, that’s unmanageable to review.
Renda said that keeping it simple – especially in the beginning stages of monitoring – is a way to manage the new task.
“It’s also imperative that the criteria being measured are actually important to the customer transaction, thus ensuring that it relates back to the primary goal: quality,” she added.
By honing in on the specific area one wants to monitor, a company’s data is not clogged with irrelevant information. Establishing parameters on what a company is looking to acquire by monitoring data will in turn make the monitored data more focused, which eliminates time, and saves money on only employing a call monitoring provider for exactly what a company needs.
However, while many companies, industry experts and market analysts discuss how important call monitoring is for a company’s life cycle, it’s seldom that anyone really touches on the specifics of what a company actually monitors.
What’s more, because there are so many rules and regulations regarding what can be monitored and in what context, what a company monitor’s matters to many individuals, including companies affected and regulators that monitor them.
According to BPA’s CEO Lisa Renda, call center monitoring is a discipline that is driven strongly by metrics. Every action in a call center measured on either a quantitative or qualitative standard, and monitoring can be done the same way, however, on different levels.
“In a rapidly growing company, it is probably unrealistic to measure a large number of complex parameters,” Renda told TMCnet in a previous interview. “It is far more reasonable to keep the number of criteria to a minimum, especially in a call center where new agents are coming on board on a continuous basis.”
For companies just starting to monitor calls as a way to improve operations, over analyzing and trying to measure more factors than feasible often confuse management and produce an over abundance of data, that’s unmanageable to review.
Renda said that keeping it simple – especially in the beginning stages of monitoring – is a way to manage the new task.
“It’s also imperative that the criteria being measured are actually important to the customer transaction, thus ensuring that it relates back to the primary goal: quality,” she added.
By honing in on the specific area one wants to monitor, a company’s data is not clogged with irrelevant information. Establishing parameters on what a company is looking to acquire by monitoring data will in turn make the monitored data more focused, which eliminates time, and saves money on only employing a call monitoring provider for exactly what a company needs.
Kelly McGuire is a TMCnet Web editor, covering CRM and workforce technologies, and anchor of its daily TMC Newsroom video broadcast. Kelly also writes about eco-friendly "green" technologies and smart grids, compiling TMCnet's weekly e-Newsletters on those topics, as well as the cable industry. To read more of Kelly's articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Kelly McGuire
