Author: Franz Malten Buemann

Steve Jobs once said,
“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”
That first sentence is a home run for call center quality monitoring. But these days, customers expect excellence. 
Today’s customer has evolved, with no patience for anything less than exceptional. Your first step to meeting them is through call center quality monitoring.
But how do you monitor and analyze a call center that receives thousands of daily calls?
How do you keep track of so many agent interactions?
This article will cover everything you need to know about call quality monitoring in the call center and why it’s essential to reach your business goals.
What is Call Center Quality Monitoring?
In its most basic sense, call quality monitoring requires leaders to monitor and analyze agent interactions with customers. With that data, you can inform performance management and improve the customer experience.
How to Measure Customer Perception of Your Brand

Maybe you have a library of call recordings on your system. That’s an excellent start but insufficient to measure, monitor, and improve call quality.
Here are a few things you might monitor:

Agent tone of voice
Speaking speed
Language
Personalized service
Resolution effectiveness and time
Effective questions
Credibility building
Empathy
Script

Call center quality monitoring is a big task. You should assess call recordings for tone of voice, resolutions, empathy, process adherence, customer satisfaction, and more. #QualityAssurance #CallCenterLifeClick To Tweet
But to take your call center quality assurance process to the next level, you should find out:

How agents use tools to provide excellent service and find ways to improve those tools
Resolutions that are proven to solve common customer inquiries

Here’s the thing: you can’t afford NOT to invest in call quality monitoring. Why? Your call center will suffer in these critical areas:

Customer experience
Customer satisfaction and loyalty
Business efficiency
Agent engagement 

A high-quality call means the customer leaves satisfied with a clear, effective solution to their problem. But how do you get started with quality monitoring?
6 Tips for Boosting Customer Satisfaction in the Call Center

Call Quality Monitoring Approaches
The good news is that you have a few approaches you can take to monitor and analyze call quality.
Sample Monitoring:
Managers will select random agent interactions and call recordings for review. The quality assurance team (managers and agents) will listen and assess the interaction for agent performance and customer satisfaction.
But are samples foolproof? Not quite. You might only pick ordinary samples and miss out on interactions that offer insights into operational issues. We recommend you opt for more targeted monitoring to get a fuller picture – pick super short or long calls to start. 
Targeted Monitoring:
This approach helps you identify key areas where agents perform superbly or poorly. You might target agent interactions with cancellations or low customer satisfaction scores. That’s valuable data you can use to do better with difficult customer support issues. Other targets might include loyal or high-paying customers or first-time callers.
Many contact centers use targeted monitoring to create agent quality scores. Scoring individual calls at random and assessing speech analytics can be used for baseline scores and examples of excellent quality for use in future call center training sessions.

TIP:
Target agent interactions with high-performers in your quality monitoring strategy to create a golden standard for training.

Automation and Call Detail Monitoring with Fonolo:
The right technology is essential for effective quality monitoring. Fonolo’s Portal lets you monitor your call-backs in real-time. You can access rich reports and analytics and monitor call details to inform your strategies and improve quality.
Quick-Start Guide to Call Quality Monitoring
Call center quality monitoring isn’t a walk in the park. Even with the right technology and manpower, quality assurance may fall short. Here are some common challenges:
●     Data overwhelm: too much data to sift through
●     Misinterpreted data: Correct data that’s misinterpreted by managers and agents
●     Insufficient technology: Outdated or ineffective software that doesn’t make monitoring efficient
●     Time restraints: No time in the day to dedicate to quality monitoring
Here are some best practices to overcome these challenges:
1. Seek Customer Feedback
Who can distinguish a great customer experience from a bad one better than your customers? Inform your quality assurance strategy with valuable customer feedback. You might send customer surveys via email or request a call rating through your IVR system. Fonolo’s Visual IVR lets you display a custom message after every interaction — an excellent opportunity to solicit feedback.
You can use this feedback to inform training priorities and metrics to focus on and shed light on misinterpreted data.
2. Select Key Metrics and Standards
We know how many call center metrics and KPIs we have available. First-call resolution (FCR), average handle time (AHT) occupancy rate, customer satisfaction score, and abandonment rate.
A Guide to the Top Call Center Metrics

But if you spread yourself thin across all metrics, you’ll miss the essential ones. Look back at your customer feedback. For example: if customers can’t resolve issues fast enough, FCR and AHT are vital metrics.
You should also establish clear standards for quality, process, and compliance. Ask questions like:

Did the agent provide a resolution and add value?
Was the customer impressed and satisfied?
Did the agent follow the script to a reasonable degree?
Did the agent follow established business processes?

DID YOU KNOW?
Fonolo’s Voice Call-Backs are proven to improve key metrics like CSat, AHT, net promoter score, and more!

3. Dedicate Resources to Quality Assurance
Call quality assurance links to improved profits, happier customers, and significant efficiencies. Such a valuable aspect of business deserves focused attention. That means dedicating a team to call center quality monitoring.
Think of your QA team as a task force with the common goal of maintaining excellent service through a data-driven strategy. Members should be veterans within your call center — managers, supervisors, and best call center agents. Team members should know your business goals, have access to metrics, and have enough time to develop a quality assurance strategy alongside their duties.The post 3 Call Center Quality Monitoring Best Practices first appeared on Fonolo.

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