Managing Quality Assurance in the contact centre

Despite customers demanding higher service levels and a better service experience, quality assurance (QA) processes are not formalised in every contact centre.

Research suggests that less than 40% of contact centre leaders would say that their QA processes are fully optimised. 34% say that they are “somewhat” optimised and the remaining follow very basic practices that cannot always maintain a consistent benchmark of service quality across different interactions, teams, and locations.

Here are 14 best practices to remember if improving QA is a top priority at your contact centre in the next few quarters.

Define SMART KPIs: Our quality KPIs must be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely or SMART, so you can monitor if agents are meeting KPI goals
Demonstrate unquantifiable standards: The unquantifiable determiners of quality – like politeness, active listening, empathy, focus, etc. – should be demonstrated using call recordings and roleplay-based training sessions
Use call recording technology: Any contact centre software system will let you record calls, but a dedicated call recording technology can take it a step further by assigning tags, adding on speech analytics, and more
Conduct randomised QA checks: Use the randomly record calls option to collect a sample of interactions. Assess if these interactions are meeting your first-time resolution goals, staying within call duration targets, and other KPIs
Cover all channels: In a blended contact centre, there is a propensity to prioritise quality on whichever channel receives the most volume. Make sure to enforce QA standards across channels for a consistent experience
Formalise your QA program: A formal quality assurance program means you must define goals, document them, create a structured process for assessing goal fulfilment, and invite participation from stakeholders
Adopt self-evaluation: Ask agents to playback their own interactions and evaluate them against your quality standards. This creates a sense of empowerment while also highlighting service issues
Collect customer feedback: Feedback will highlight any standout cases of superior or inferior service delivery. In addition to internal assessments, act on customer feedback to improve CX
Balance CX with organisational and agent objectives: Prioritising every customer experience can add unhealthy pressure to the agent’s workload or stretch out each call to an extent that it disturbs your contact centre’s efficiency
Use agent assist: Agent assist technology inserts helpful tips, contextual information, and guiding action points to help agents stick to the script and solve customer issues
Leverage coaching and mentorships: In addition to traditional training, coaching and mentorships provide agents with one-on-one assistance. This enables them to better navigate QA processes without ambiguity
Use automation: An automated tool can analyse call metadata and speech analysis results to identify which call recordings require human intervention and further inspection for QA
Offer positive feedback: QA in a contact centre isn’t just about eliminating issues or inefficiencies. You also need to reinforce positive behaviour and encourage its relocation across the workforce
Start early: Finally, ensure that quality assurance isn’t a remediation measure. It should be incorporated into the agent onboarding experience for quality adherence from the get-go