Top tips for call quality monitoring

Last Updated August 2016
In virtually every contact centre it is now common practice for agent’s calls to be monitored and evaluated by their supervisor or quality specialist. But is your contact centre receiving real value from quality monitoring? Below we have listed a few tips on how to do just that.

1. Assign Quality Ownership

It sounds obvious, but if nobody wants to own the process, how can it be audited and calibrated to ensure it is effective and continues to improve and adapt to the businesses changing needs? Similarly there should be a clearly documented process for monitoring and evaluating calls and all agents and team managers should be trained and familiar with all areas of quality monitoring and how to get the most from the system they have in place

2. Develop and maintain evaluation forms

Evaluation forms are at the heart of a good quality monitoring programme and when compiling them you need to ask yourself:

• Am I asking the right questions?
• Am I getting the required results? i.e. output which leads to a continuous coaching and development plan for my team
• Does the scoring mechanism allow agents to provide an ‘outstanding’ or ‘WoW factor’ service not just an ‘average’ or ‘satisfactory’ service?

3. Evaluation Dispute Process

Agents need to be given the opportunity to dispute their evaluation if they feel they are not happy with any aspect of it. The dispute process allows the agent the opportunity to have their evaluation re-assessed by another person, making them feel more involved in the evaluation process and consequently empowering them to take ownership of the quality of their work.

4. Agent Synergy Sessions

Synergy sessions involve groups of agents, team managers, CSMs and trainers listening to calls together to discuss call-handling techniques and evaluate the quality of the call. These sessions help reinforce quality standards and allow new and experienced agents to share experiences, best practice and provide a natural way to cross skill agents from different departments. Recent studies have shown that agents attending regular synergy sessions achieve anywhere from 5% to 20% higher quality scores than the overall contact centre.

To create a successful quality-monitoring programme a contact centre must be able to:

CAPTURE:

Be able to capture agent calls for quality monitoring purposes

EVALUATE:

Evaluate and score these calls against call evaluation standards

ANALYSE:

Produce meaningful quality monitoring reports for the various levels of the business

IMPROVE:

Then act on the information provided to better improve the service provided to customers

If you found this blog post interesting, we’ve recently put together a series of new articles in our Quality Monitoring Advice Hub outlining how to make the most out of your technology.