Tips for Quality Monitoring in Call Centers

Tips for Quality Monitoring in Call CentersTips for Quality Monitoring in Call CentersCompanies invest large sums of money in call centers, so they want to make sure they are operating as effectively as possible and that customers are satisfied with the speed and quality of service they receive. They do this through quality monitoring of the call centers and their employees. The majority of behauptung facilities with dedicated equipment and staff respond to incoming calls, but some make outgoing sales calls. The incoming call centers also handle sales calls but are also used forcustomer serviceand customer support. If you purchase a product or service from a large company, or if you need help with that product, you will most likely deal with acustomer service representativeat a call center. These call center agents are often the face of the company to its customers. What Quality Call Center Monitoring Is Call center managers monitor call centers with respect to performance and to quality, settingKey Performance Indicator (KPI)metrics for them. Performance issues include metrics like how quickly the caller can reach a call center and how quickly they can reach an agent, how quickly their issue can be resolved and the call closed, and how long they wait on hold during a call. These metrics are typically measured by an Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) phone ordnungsprinzip and are discussed elsewhere. Quality issues that call center managers set KPI metrics for include agent courtesy and ability to follow procedures. These are typically measured by call center quality monitoring programs, explained in detail below. The Importance of Call Center Quality Monitoring Most call center quality monitoring is done by people rather than software. Speech recognition software is improving but has not yet reached the point where it is preferred over human monitors. Some companies set up their call centers without including a quality monitoring program. This is short-s ighted. The information captured by the metrics of a call center monitoring program is essential to the cost-effective operation of the call center and the capturing of vitalcustomer feedbackon quality, performance, and service. Benefits of Hiring an Outside Firm for Call Center Quality Monitoring A company has to decide whether to monitor the quality performance of their call center representatives using their own staff or hiring an outside firm to do it. Even when a company has an internal Quality Department to supplement the team managers in the call center, it is preferable to hire a third-party firm to do quality monitoring. This outside monitoring provides additional data that the team managers just dont have the time to produce. An outside firm doing the quality monitoring of your call center is preferred because the outside firm is perceived as mora objective for the following three reasons 1. Objectivity When monitoring is done by an internal quality group or team leade r, call center representatives wonder whether the score they receive from that company member might be biased by other interactions within the company. They worry, for example, that the quality monitor might give them lower marks because of the disagreement they had in the lunch room last week, or that their supervisor has favorites to whom he or she gives higher marks. When the monitoring and grading are done by anonymous outsiders, none of those possible biases influence the scores. 2. Speed When supervisors are responsible for monitoring calls their employees take, they often monitor as few as two or three calls a month. An outside quality monitoring firm is able to meetservice level agreements(SLA) that monitor four to eight calls per employee each week. This produces more accurate metrics more quickly. 3. Perspective An outside firm can often provide insight into the underlying issues and problems the quality monitoring reveals that the internal quality team cant see because t hey are too close to the problems. How to Start the Call Center Quality Monitoring Process Develop a scorecard that will be used to measure the subjectivemetrics, such as customer courtesy. Make sure you get input from all stakeholders, including the employees who will be handling the calls.Listen to the calls. Typically they are recorded in case there is any difference of opinion on the scoring, or to reinforce training points. The quality monitor can listen to the calls live as they happen, or later.Score the call based on the scorecard developed at the beginning of the program. These scores are then made available to the company management to see if they are meeting their goals and to then take appropriate action. Data analysis of scores tells management how well they are doing, whats going well, and where further training is needed. It can also highlight where changes need to be made to the scripts sales teams follow or to the procedures the service team uses. Done right, it provides excellent information on the Voice of the Customer that is critical to the companyscustomer satisfaction program.Select a sample of calls to use to calibrate your scoring. Everyone involved in scoring needs to periodically evaluate the same call and compare scores to make sure scoring is standardized. Bottom Line Takeaway for Quality Monitoring in Call Centers By monitoring a statistically significant number of calls, scoring them against a calibrated scorecard, and providing those data to everyone involved, a company can maximize the value of its call center and call center employees.