Call Center Quality Assurance (QA)
Learn about the basics of call quality, why call center QA is important, and tips to continuously improve call quality assurance.
Learn about the basics of call quality, why call center QA is important, and tips to continuously improve call quality assurance.
Published 22 Nov 2023
Call Center Quality Assurance (QA) is a process that can help ensure customer interactions are aligned with business goals. Call center QA aims to identify common customer issues, improve customer experience, and help standardize communication processes with customers.
Quality assurance in call centers is important because it can enhance agent performance and maximize customer satisfaction. When end-user interactions are of the highest quality (e.g. quick response and handling time), volume decreases and key performance indicators such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) increases.
Call quality is typically monitored by the team leader, quality assurance specialist member, or call center quality analyst. There are commonly two categories of data, also known as quality parameters, that are assessed when monitoring QA in call centers:
Being an effective quality analyst for call centers is crucial because the reputation of the business process outsourcing (BPO) company relies heavily on the quality of service they seek to continuously improve. Listed below are some skills required for call center quality analysts:
Call center quality assurance can seem challenging because of the sheer volume of calls to be assessed, but it is necessary to identify areas of improvement, especially for call center customer service agents. Here are some tips to help you create a call center QA process, effectively fulfill QA tasks, and improve call center quality:
Are you aiming to get the highest CSAT among peers? Do you need to make sure that the 800 calls on a queue are answered with minimum abandoned calls? Are you customer service-focused or more about technical support? Is your Net Promoter Score (NPS) or CSAT falling behind that of competitors? What are your Key Performance Indicators? Where do you stand according to your benchmarking? You need to know what to prioritize and build your QA forms according to your focus.
QA is an ongoing process for a call center and you should make sure that representatives are aware it is indeed ongoing. Recordings should be done often enough for calls, emails, or chats because these communications can be used to determine the quality of customer interactions. The quality of these communications can then be discussed during coaching and training sessions. QA monitoring done consistently can reinforce good habits that help improve customer experience and address areas for improvement.
All employees who interact with customers should be monitored and coached for QA regardless if they are top performers, underperformers, or mid performers because there will always be areas for improvement. Those who underperform can greatly benefit from QA coaching because errors can be addressed. While for mid and top performers, reinforcements or recognition of good practices can be accomplished during coaching sessions.
“This call may be monitored for quality assurance and training purposes” is exactly what it says. QA can use recorded communications with customers for QA coaching and training opportunities for employees to improve their customer interactions. Recorded communications can also help in the improvement of operational processes.
Solely relying on a QA scorecard can lead to adverse outcomes for customer interaction. A QA scorecard should only be used to assist with achieving a minimum standard of call. All team members should be encouraged to go above and beyond in delivering a positive customer experience even if that directly contradicts a scorecard. Remember, customers and agents are humans and not all interactions can be graded in a scorecard.
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Below are additional ways to help improve quality assurance in call centers:
Eliminate manual tasks and streamline your operations.Create a Quality Assurance Checklist for Call Centers
An ever-changing call monitoring process makes it more difficult for team leaders to develop high-performing call center agents. Miscommunicating updated quality standards also add to the burden of keeping the growth of team members in mind. Call center managers and quality assurance analysts should standardize how they perform call monitoring to easily determine and follow through on exactly how a call representative should improve.
QA forms that are standardized, carefully constructed, and easy to use are great tools for QA monitoring. Scoring and Analytics available in SafetyCulture (iAuditor) can help QA specialists gauge the quality of calls, monitor trends, provide Training opportunities, and identify frequently failed items.
SafetyCulture group administrators can control the permissions of other SafetyCulture users to make sure that QA forms used are standardized across the board. With data collected and secured in cloud-based storage, SafetyCulture can help QA specialists determine the proper action plans and align communication processes with business goals.
Call center QA exists to help businesses improve their interaction with customers, benchmark communication processes, and drive employees to work together towards achieving business goals. With the help of tools like SafetyCulture, you can determine what you need to improve on to consistently deliver your ideal customer experience.
Call quality monitoring forms help QA specialists identify the areas for improvement, record observations, and provide recommendations that can help enhance the quality of customer interaction. Use SafetyCulture (formerly iAuditor) as a call monitoring software to effectively perform call QA assessments and analyze collected data. Get started by downloading these free call center quality assurance form examples and customize them according to your processes and standards.
Erick Brent Francisco
Erick Brent Francisco is a content writer and researcher for SafetyCulture since 2018. As a content specialist, he is interested in learning and sharing how technology can improve work processes and workplace safety. His experience in logistics, banking and financial services, and retail helps enrich the quality of information in his articles.
Erick Brent Francisco is a content writer and researcher for SafetyCulture since 2018. As a content specialist, he is interested in learning and sharing how technology can improve work processes and workplace safety. His experience in logistics, banking and financial services, and retail helps enrich the quality of information in his articles.
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