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How to optimize Customer Service with Quality Monitoring Technology

Any business leader knows that maintaining good relationships with customers is critical to the success and growth of any organization. If customers are happy, they’ll continue using the services you provide. If they’re not satisfied, they’ll go elsewhere. While no business leaders or employee can completely control a customer’s actions, there are steps you can take to optimize customer service and keep clients coming back. Ensuring employees are well trained to provide excellent service will go a long way toward making customers happy. Good customer service is as important in a call center as it is anywhere else. It takes skill for agents to respond to concerns and provide answers customers are looking for. One way to train employees to perform this work effectively is to identify areas where they can improve and steps they can take to make adjustments. Call monitoring technology is available for organizations to review all calls and work with employees to get them to the levels where you need them. With monitoring software, you can record all phone interactions between customers and employees. Then you can meet with the agents one on one and go through every second of the call. By doing this, the employee can hear what mistakes they might have made as well as areas in which they excelled in taking the call. Call monitoring technology allows the employee to understand how they can ask better questions, if they need to change the tone of their voice and how their attitudes and responses can optimize customer service. I f you run a call center, you probably have firmly established protocols on how long calls should take for certain issues and what topics should be covered and avoided. Call center quality assurance is significantly enhanced when you use monitoring software. The use of call monitoring technology helps all parties involved in the call. It benefits the customer because it increases the likelihood they’ll be speaking with a better-trained agent who has learned from mistakes and gained more confidence. The customer will have a better experience and will therefore leave more satisfied. Employees will be equipped with more information and tools to make better decisions for each call. This will help them feel more comfortable in their role and will go a long way in building job satisfaction. Each phone call your call center agents take is important. Make the most of each interaction and use monitoring technology to optimize customer service in each instance. For more advice on creating a Quality Monitoring Solution that helps improve CX or if you would like to learn more about Etech, feel free to contact us at info@etechgs.com. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

5 Steps to Increase Efficiency and Effectiveness in Your Quality Monitoring System

When quality monitoring for a call center is only focused on problem detection and resolution, it falls short of its full potential. A methodology that also identifies opportunities for building customer loyalty is essential for supervisors, upper management and strategic planners. These advanced, robust technologies should not forgo the “personal touch” — in fact, they are ideal opportunities to better incorporate it. These suggestions will aid anyone seeking to successfully fine-tune a call center quality assurance system. Make Sure Basic Protocols Are Followed Quality monitoring is a vital tool for ensuring that best practices in a contact center are observed. Placing new agents — as well as continuous improvement for current representatives — involves follow-up to determine if additional training is required. It is important to make sure agents get the basic protocols for call handling right, such as greeting, putting callers on hold, engaging the caller while researching information, and closing the call. With observation, it is easier to catch undesirable practices before they stick. Use Metrics Effectively Information does no good unless it is actually applied. Once gathered, it should be leveraged in order to train and develop agents as well as improve overall center performance. Call length, speed of answer, first time resolution percentage rates and other data can also be used to set performance standards, which can be evaluated and retooled as needed. Create Systems Gradually It is tempting to jump in feet first, but this can lead to being easily overwhelmed and decreases changes of meaningful application from a quality monitoring approach. Staring with simple monitoring is always a good start, and it assists with creating the building blocks for a future call center quality assurance plan. Make Data and Feedback Available Information and training intersect well when performance statistics are not only shared, but used to improve agent performance and motivate representatives who already demonstrate high levels of call handling and resolution skills. Group sessions are great for sharing best practices, and individual metrics can be used in performance reviews as well as awarding incentives. Build a Specialized QA Team Assembling a quality management team is crucial for operations. Once it is in place, these individuals must be given the necessary training and support. Identifying internal staff for this team or hiring externally based on needed skillsets are both options. Implementing call center quality assurance can often be a challenge. However, a properly executed system provides a host of benefits. Ensuring basic protocols are followed, using metrics effectively, building gradually, using the data and building a QA team are all keys in a successful plan.

7 Incorrect Ways of Call Quality Monitoring

Keeping your customer service quality at the top of its game is an important tool for your company’s continued growth. This truth drives the central purpose of call quality monitoring, which is to ensure that customers get what they need in an accessible, professional way every time they call. Maintaining this standard is about more than just developing quality assurance evaluation criteria that work for your customers. It is also about making sure you avoid these seven major missteps that take your call quality in the wrong direction. Monitoring Only Agents IVR systems are a major point of customer dissatisfaction in a lot of situations where call centers wind up getting less than stellar reviews. By monitoring when customers opt out of the IVR system, when they hang up, and how they use it to complete their calls without needing an agent, you are able to build a better idea of how it is working for you, and eventually a better system. Without that information, you will never even know if your IVR is the problem. Failing to Provide Training and Support The entire purpose of call quality monitoring is defeated if employees receive ratings and feedback but not training and support to effect change. If you want to see real results from your quality team, they need to use feedback as a pivot, moving from issues into direct strategies employees can use to be successful. Yes/No Evaluation Criteria Just like a failure to provide training, a failure to provide nuanced feedback really keeps employees from following through on quality goals and improvements, because it doesn’t provide them with the information they need to successfully navigate the situation. Failing to Get Agents on Your Side Your quality program is only as good as its support within the department. If agents view quality feedback as policing, or as unproductive, then they tend not to follow through with the steps needed to grow and to attain the objectives that define the purpose of call quality monitoring. This means that in a situation where you do not have the backing of the agents, it is likely that quality assurance is not working at all. Individualized Interpretation of Guidelines This is an issue for any organization, but if you hold regular calibration sessions, it does not need to be. Most employees will do their best with guidelines and instructions, but only by reviewing the expectations together in an environment that allows for questions to be asked and clarification given can you be sure everyone is understanding the goals and procedures in the same way. Being Secretive Your best results are obtained when employees understand how and why they are being evaluated, as well as what to do with the information they receive. By being secretive about sampling, monitoring, or any other aspect of your ongoing evaluations, you only work against your own objectives. Failing to Reward Staff for Improved Satisfaction Last but not least, quality programs fall apart when staff does not feel invested in quality. That means that when your program starts to reach its objectives, you reward the agents and other staff involved in making it to this new benchmark. By steering clear of these seven wrong ways to do quality monitoring, you begin to carve a path toward a sustainable, consistently improving quality program. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

8 Objectives of Quality Monitoring

Your quality program for customer service is the main way your company directly interacts with customers, and that makes it a key component in your strategies to retain customers and to convert first time purchasers into repeat business. This puts a lot of stress on the program, especially if your organization has any questions about the role of quality monitoring. Ensuring that your employees understand your quality monitoring objectives and the overall impact that they have on the company means getting better responses to feedback and better returns on your quality improvement gestures. Individualizing Forms and Procedures The first quality objective should be to move the customer service personnel away from a “one size fits all” method of responding to customer concerns. That means understanding the variety of concerns customers have, as well as using quality monitoring to address any issues with understanding different customer needs and concerns. Keeping Forms Up to Date Your forms and procedures also stop working at the point where they no longer reflect either your customers’ experience or your offerings. Unfortunately, it can take some time for outdated forms and procedures to work themselves out naturally. This is where quality monitoring has an opportunity to take responsibility for not only the revisions, but the proliferation of those documents after each change is made. Avoid Technology as a Cure-All It is tempting to think of technology as the eventual answer to any business challenge, but the fact is that more often than not, the real change needs to be made at the level of human implementation. That means your quality objectives should weigh both what technology is used and how it is used if you are to make the most of the role of quality monitoring in your organization. Track and Share Your Results One of the major goals of your quality team should be to get the entire department excited about quality improvement. That means sharing the results of your monitoring and making sure that everyone understands the ways that these results are used to make the entire organization better. Avoid Being Seen as the ‘Call Police’ There’s no doubt that your quality monitoring objectives include some direct and quantitative goals for your company, and that is great. Being a supportive resource for growth provides an alternative that makes it easier to build rapport and gain cooperation from all the employees in a department. Hold Periodic Calibration Sessions Just as your forms and procedures need to be updated to ensure that they are changed and detailed enough to support your customer support needs, your overall approach needs to be re-calibrated from time to time across the whole department. Use Representative Sampling Many call centers rely on small samples of their overall call volume to make decisions. One of your most important customer experience to move toward representative sampling. That way, you have the confidence of knowing that your results fit the big picture. Use What Works In the end, quality monitoring objectives are about understanding what your company needs to be successful. As you calibrate yours, keep in mind that some objectives might be lower priority for your business model than others. Throw out any that don’t work, and keep on running updates and re-calibrating your procedures until the right balance emerges. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

5 Effective Ways to Measure the Quality of Your Customer Service

As every modern business knows, there is a strong correlation between success and customer service quality. If you fail to make an authentic connection with your customers, they will simply take their business elsewhere. There are numerous, simple ways to evaluate the effectiveness of your customer service approach. If you are a business owner who is interested in customer service quality monitoring, the five following quality assurance techniques below may be able to provide you with guidance. Look for Flaws or Shortcomings in Your Operation : At times, the quality of your customer service can be linked to an unnoticed flaw or shortcoming in your daily business operations. For example, if you own a restaurant, and your patrons frequently complain about not receiving their dishes on time, the issue could be traced to an incompetent server or cook. In general, remaining aware of your own weaknesses can help you constantly improve your level of customer service. Evaluate the Supply and Demand of Your Products : Supply and demand are a major component of economics and business, but did you know that this concept can also be used to evaluate the quality of your customer service. Satisfied consumers tend to purchase more products from the same company. Simply put, if you are noticing a considerable number of repeat customers or clients on a regular basis, your customer service approach is probably working. Of course, outside economic factors can be major contributors to your data, so you may want to combine this method with others in order to get the most comprehensive snapshot of customer satisfaction. Research the Competition : Many business owners neglect to research their competitors’ approach to customer service. If your competitors have an immensely higher rate of customer satisfaction, you may be able to learn from their techniques. Simply visit or call your competitors’ establishment yourself, or send an employee to see how their approach to customer service differs from yours. If you want the most reliable data, ask your competitors’ customers what they like about the company. Examine the Number of Complaints You Receive : It is impossible to satisfy every single customer, but you can use the number of complaints you receive as a measuring tool. Some people assume that if the number of irate customers decreases it means that the quality of your customer service has increased. This is a common fallacy that causes many unknowing business owners to send their disgruntled customers to a competitor. For the most accurate data, combine this method with others. Ask Customers Directly : Have you ever considered asking your customers for their opinion directly? If not, you may be missing out an opportunity to compile a massive amount of reliable data. Some business owners prefer to ask customers directly, while others encourage them to fill out surveys. If neither of these tactics sounds appealing to you, follow-up phone calls can also help you better understand customer opinions. A Step in the Right Direction If you are truly interested in improving the quality of your customer service, the five tips listed above can point you in the right direction. If you follow them, you will expand your customer base, increase revenue and develop deeper connections with existing customers. This blog was first published on LinkedIn

4 Easy Steps to Check Your Call Center QA System Reliability

There’s a huge difference between having a quality assurance system and getting the most out of it. For Call center quality assurance to be effective, it has to be reliable, and center managers need to know how to check their quality processes to ensure that reliability is ongoing. Luckily, there are a few easy and sustainable call center QA program processes to help with this reliability. That way, your call center delivers more to its customers because your QA team is delivering more to the call center overall. Step One: Gap Assessment Knowing where you are and where you want to be allows you to break down the gap between those performance levels into steps that your employees can easily take. To get a baseline, start by comparing where your operations are at against what is generally accepted as standard operating procedure. Once there’s a solid measurement there, it is easier to set goals and to devise processes to bring those goals to fruition. To do that: Determine where your gaps occur and which processes create them. Devise a plan of action that avoids creating circumstances that lead to gaps. Put the plan into place to control for that situation. Measure any changes that occur to your overall call center performance. There might be numerous rounds of adjustment to make for each area where gaps are identified, both because incremental goals are easier to achieve and also because correctly identifying the best control for a process often takes a couple of pilot attempts before you lock in the best solution for your call center QA program. Step Two: Avoid Silo Processes Generally, businesses are more successful when their various departments and divisions pull together, because all of the various efforts throughout the company coordinate and synergize as the organization moves toward its goal. Practically, this can be more difficult to achieve, because larger companies often have departments or divisions that are spread widely enough to make close communication more difficult. The best way to combat this is by bringing together the various measurements and goals of call center management in different departments through the QA program, so that everyone is using everyone else’s data to ensure their quality controls are effective, without causing unintended consequences. This move also has the effect of streamlining the flow of information for call center quality assurance personnel, so they have access to the tools they need to be successful. Step Three: Measuring and Tracking Improvement Incremental improvement on a day to day basis is both more sustainable and more practical, in terms of meeting performance forecasts, than expecting a total overhaul. To promote this kind of growth, though, measuring and tracking performance is essential. That way, not only are you sure your new procedures are effective, you also gain the ability to address plateaus and surges, so your training and quality assurance continue to be effective. Step Four: Training for Every Day Improvement The last step in ensuring QA reliability is turning its processes and controls into actions that employees are able to monitor and use effectively. Disseminating information throughout the company, so that employees understand both the goals and processes of your QA program, is key to this. Employees who understand quality assurance goals are better able to report relevant developments to QA personnel, improving the flow of information and the reliability of the program overall. This blog was first published on LinkedIN

Quality Monitoring System: Think Beyond Dispute Resolution

Using new quality monitoring technologies in combination with quality analytics software is the key to empowering your customer service call center to move to the front of the industry. Where monitoring technology was once used for mainly training purposes and dispute resolution, new technologies that help with analyzing and understanding that data are providing solutions that allow companies to institute quality assurance programs in their customer service departments that match anything found in their manufacturing or service divisions. Analytics Software The key to the entire revolution in call center quality has been the growth of sophistication in analytics software. Modern quality analytics software is capable of guiding your business toward the best practices that lead to increased agent success, improving both individual performances and the department as a whole. This works because these programs are able to coordinate information coming from your quality monitoring technology in ways that allow the accurate measurement of: IVR use and abandonment Agent success rates Call lengths Queue waiting time lengths Customer satisfaction ratings By bringing all of these points of information together, your company can move beyond industry recommendations by monitoring the different elements that correlate to higher success for your agents, in your industry. That way, you know that your procedures are reflected by rising success rates and, when customer attitudes or needs shift, these data points also provide insight that helps you change with them. Monitoring and Metadata Part of the way that these new software packages work is by monitoring what is called metadata—the data that describes the call, rather than a recording of the actual call. This data is much more efficiently gathered by the system, allowing it to be easily sorted and analyzed. When combined with traditional monitoring that is used for training and dispute resolution, this provides multiple ways of interpreting information and gauging results and helps to map individual sites of evaluation onto the company’s larger outlook. Training and Support To get the most out of your quality monitoring technology and quality analytics software, the department also needs to commit to using the information. That means moving beyond reports and supporting employees with tools that help them hold to standards and deliver consistent performances while also understanding better ways to do things as they are learned. This usually means: Evaluation criteria with detailed feedback Calibration meetings to keep everyone on the same page Support and training resources that can be accessed alone or in formal settings Managerial support for employee questions When you bring the supports together, you get an infrastructure for disseminating the information learned from the data analytics, so that way you are able to continue improving your call enter even as it reaches your original objectives. This kind of responsive combination of management and technology also keeps your department versatile and ensures that you know enough to move with your customers. Conclusion Quality monitoring technology is nothing new, but its usefulness has traditionally been limited by the fact that it singles out individual instances. With new quality analytics software and updated technology, though, your company can put together a comprehensive heuristic program that will steer your customer service toward the top of the industry.

Six Pitfalls to Avoid with Quality Monitoring Systems

As you evaluate your quality assurance systems you are probably asking yourself, whether they are delivering the results that you and your stakeholders anticipated. If this is not true for your current situation, investigate the root cause and implement any change required to avoid negative impact to your operations and to your brand.A sound quality monitoring system is a foundation for driving agent performance, managing operational costs, revealing training needs and increasing customer satisfaction among many other benefits. Unfortunately, there are certain things which may hinder successful implementation of a quality monitoring system. Here are six pitfalls to look for and tips on how to overcome them. Documentation of Deliverables Lack of fully defined and documented deliverables presents a huge risk of failure, because if you have incorrect or insufficient information regarding your deliverables, you will create risk of failure in your implementation. Quality monitoring goes beyond technology; you need to understand what you it is that you want to achieve and create the necessary plans to achieve each objective. Your input into the software and program details determines your results. Tip: Develop and document a strategic quality framework that will guide all your efforts, and make it public for everyone on the project team to read and understand it. Allocation of Time for Evaluation At the core of any quality monitoring system is evaluation of the customer interaction through the contact medium whether it is a call or chat or other contact means. Allocating sufficient time for contact evaluation and assessing the correct sample size per agent is critical to effective implementation of the quality monitoring system. When you allocate too little time or a small sample size, you affect the accuracy and validity of the results. It is practically impossible to review all contacts, so evaluators need to determine the number of calls to review during what period of time. Tip: Consider using tools that can help you with planning, scheduling and replay/review function. Insufficient Coaching It is one thing to evaluate agents, and it is another to use that information for proper coaching. Inadequate coaching is a huge pitfall because the agents will not understand fully their areas of opportunity, and how to improve them. Coaching is the most effective way to continually improve employee performance by giving them an opportunity to point out their own mistakes and develop their own solutions. He or she will quickly implement the quality program through ownership of the process. Tip: Effective and efficient coaching starts with individualized feedback; empower and encourage agents to self-evaluate. Perceived Favoritism When agents receive evaluation feedback, some may feel that it was unfair especially if it was negative and others got positive feedback. This may lead to resentment and hurt feelings, which eventually affects service delivery. Lack of transparency in the scoring and grading procedures increases this perception. Tip: Use advanced solutions that allow you to incorporate an agent learning center. Reviewed contacts are tagged and notated to facilitate agent self-evaluation and coaching. Evaluators should be trained and calibrated to be fair and partial during scoring for uniform scoring results. Failure to Target Thousands of interactions between customer representatives and customers take place each day. It can be a challenge to determine which ones to evaluate for valuable insight into agent performance and areas that need development and improvement. Evaluating the right calls will ensure that you tackle the right problems, save time and improve agent performance. Tip: Install and utilize software that will allow you to target contacts for monitoring. Depending on which problem areas you want to monitor, you can set parameters to receive notifications regarding targeted behaviors. Ignoring External Factors External factors can paralyze your implementation efforts as much as internal ones. Ignoring the factors that are not within the evaluators and agents control can be a big issue. These factors not only produce difficulties for the agents during their customer interactions, they also generate unreliable quality monitoring results. For example, a product malfunction is a typical external factor which can generate a poor customer experience survey but be entirely outside the control of the customer service representative. Tip: Upgrade your software to include screen recording, because it will give you a 360 view of the process. In summary, lack of defined deliverables, insufficient time for contact evaluation, ineffective coaching, perceived feelings of favoritism, failure to target contacts for evaluation and ignoring external factors are pitfalls that will derail your quality implementation process. Follow these tips and reap the benefits of a sound quality monitoring system. This blog post was first published on LinkedIN

Automatic Conversation Insights for Quality Assurance: 5 Tips

Nothing is as important as the quality of services or products that you offer to your customers. It determines the level of customer satisfaction, employee engagement and your revenue. To monitor how you are doing with respect to quality, you need a set of standards, policies and procedures to be followed by everyone in the organization. When looking at process improvement models or performance initiatives, one should also ensure that there is a vehicle for constant testing and upgrading. The feedback loop, or closed loop process will enable identification of weaknesses and inconsistencies in the service delivery. One of the best ways of monitoring and improving Quality Assurance (QA) is through conversation analytics, the study of call recordings and live phone calls. It combines language and audio processing to offer exceptional insights into customer sentiment and emotion. Simply put, it brings the human aspect into the analysis. How can you use valuable conversation insights to improve your quality assurance? Here are five tips to get started. Remove Human Bias Human bias is likely to occur during call scoring, which affects agent performance. Automating the quality monitoring process ensures that there is consistency and transparency in the process. The information gathered is accurate and can be acted upon to improve services. Elimination of human bias also ensures that the conversation insights gathered during analysis are also consistent. Organize Unstructured Data The typical call center receives an overwhelming amount of raw daily data. Conversation analysis helps you to create connections and relationships from the unstructured data. Automation helps the QA team to dig deeper into the data and create a wider knowledge base into consumer behavior. The other departments will make better use of the information once it is in a structured format. Direct your Focus Conversation insights give you a better understanding of your company performance, not just the individual agent’s performance. Customer insights reveal how they feel about your products, prices, policies and services. This vital sentiment directs your focus to what is most important to the customer and the business, such as employee engagement, customer satisfaction and business growth. Create a Fast Information Loop For the conversation insights to bring change to your quality standards, you need to have a fast information loop. Gather feedback consistently to understand how the company is performing. Remember to test and review your feedback loops for speed and accuracy before settling on a process. Embrace Innovation For real change to take place in your quality assurance program, you need to embrace innovation. Technology and innovation are at the core of automation. It starts with Big Data analysis, distilling insights and using them to improve your business processes. Innovation also influences your choice of metrics so that you can focus on measuring customer satisfaction levels, employee engagement levels and overall organization performance. With automation, your QA team will work better and faster and given that they are the connectors between the staff, customers and the business, you will gain intimate knowledge about customer sentiments and company policies through conversation analytics. Consider these five tips to push your business forward and get the edge on the competition today.

10 Influential Ways to Improve Call Center Quality Monitoring

For businesses that rely on the ability of their customer representatives to deliver outstanding service over the phone, call center quality analytics are a must. With call center quality monitoring, you can ensure that your employees are following the guidelines that can help your business succeed. Along with a monitoring program from Etech Global Services, there are additional techniques that can help your company get the most out of this technology. Here are the best ways you can utilize this helpful tool for your company. Let Representatives Be Part of the Process : The most important thing for a company that uses call center quality analytics is that your agents need to be part of the process. This can help foster a more positive atmosphere for evaluations rather than a punishing one. Incorporate Fun, Friendly Competitions to Motivate Team Members : To support a positive atmosphere, you may want to incorporate fun contests that are tied to call quality scores. A little friendly competition between employees can help motivate team members. Identify Common Problems With Agents : When analyzing call center data, look at what some customer service representatives struggle with. If you see a trend, you can address it as a company with new training. Work With Team Members Who Need Help : For those who are struggling to meet the requirements for call center quality, work with the team members who need help. Focusing more energy on training is a better investment than simply replacing these employees. Connect Quality Assurance to Company Goals : Identify the needs of your company, and draft specific goals that you want your agents to reach. All of your quality assurance effort should be directly related to these goals. Focus the Most Energy on Your Top Calls : Instead of monitoring short routine calls, focus your quality assurance program on the most involved calls where there is more interaction between customers and representatives. This is a better use of your time and resources. Analyze Customer Data With Quality Analytics : Customer surveys and other forms of evaluation should also be used alongside of call center quality assurance. Analyze all pieces of information to get the best picture of where your customer service falls. Give Plenty of Positive Feedback : Your call center monitoring feedback should offer plenty of opportunities to recognize those who are doing well. Employees want to continue doing the things that they get recognized for, so this increases motivation and productivity. Implement a Specific Training Program : When new employees come onto your team or existing employees are struggling, use your data to implement a specific course of call center training. This can help your employees know what to expect and give you greater results. Utilize Your Human Resources : Take advantage of all that your team has to offer by putting peoples’ strengths on the stage. Peers training each other can be much more effective than a supervisor or team leader taking the lead. Call center quality is a vital part to keeping your business practices consistent and profitable. Using the top ways to improve your call center effectiveness can help your company increasingly meet its goals. This blog was written by Jim Iyoob, EVP Customer Experience and Operational Excellence for Etech Global Services.

Driving Quality Improvement in Your Center

Quality improvement is dependent upon a commitment to two things — to monitor customer interactions and to use those interaction evaluations within a performance improvement process. This article will provide tips on how to create and manage a performance improvement process utilizing a quality assurance team. The most effective quality monitoring process combines feedback from a third party QA team with onsite monitoring from the front line supervisors. Some add a third layer into the process with internal quality analysts to supplement the monitoring and coaching being done at the agent level. These QAs are more like coaches, they direct, instruct and train the agents with an aim to help them offer quality services to customers. However, these internal QAs cannot replace the third party team. An outside QA team is critical to: provide unbiased feedback to improve agent behavior conduct analytical studies on quality trends and the impact to the customer experience deliver customer sentiment analysis to better understand the impact of service on the customer’s attitude toward products and services An internal QA team should not replace the front line supervisor’s role in monitoring either. They simply supplement the process. It is critical that the supervisor monitor his/her team to provide adequate and relevant coaching. While an internal QA can certainly conduct side-by-sides to provide real time feedback, the most constructive coaching should come from the supervisor who has developed a relationship with the agent. The third party team can be utilized in different ways. Because of their expertise they should provide analytical reports to: identify trends and outliers group repeat offenders with performance trending showcase best practices from top performers recommend important scripting changes identify process improvement opportunities communicate marketing wins and losses point out competitor advantages The best monitoring program uses both side by side monitoring with remote monitoring via either real time listening or through recorded calls. If recorded calls are used, the evaluations should be done within 24 hours of the recorded call for optimum and timely coaching. Side by side monitoring gives the supervisor a good indicator of the agent’s true product, call flow, and process knowledge. They will be on their very best behavior during these monitoring sessions. If this side by side monitoring session shows deficiencies, it can be addressed through coaching and follow up monitoring or, in extreme cases, through re-training. Remote monitoring lets you hear or see what the customer is experiencing. For those agents who perform well during side by sides but show opportunities during remote monitoring, a “will” issue may be the reason. The supervisor must address these instances quickly and aggressively. While a “skill” opportunity can oftentimes be overcome with coaching and training, a “will” issue is most often due to underlying reasons. Until those reasons are resolved, there is a risk of continued poor behavior. A good performance improvement process will ensure that feedback from monitoring sessions is used effectively to coach and develop. A standard performance improvement process includes the following: Documentation of coaching sessions. This documentation can be either soft or hard copy. The most important aspect of the documentation is that it be reviewed by the campaign leader to develop the supervisor and to make sure that it is being used – not simply completed, signed and filed. The campaign leader should meet with the agents to inspect that the coaching documentation is accurate and the agent is improving based on the feedback. Simply inspecting a binder or folder will not establish the coaching routine that is needed for performance improvement. The documentation should show the follow up steps and then check off when the follow up occurs. Did it result in improvement? Was the improvement sustained? A quick check of agent stats could provide that information. Documentation of calibration sessions The QA team (either internal or external) should keep a folder with the minutes of all calibration sessions. The campaign leader must ensure that calibrations are held regularly, operations leaders are attending along with the QA team, and actionable steps are being created as a result of the sessions. It is extremely important for an external QA team to be in the loop of all script, product, and promotion changes as well as any process or application changes that may impact the call flow. These calibration sessions will help in closing any gaps in communication. Varied coaching techniques Supervisors must understand how to coach and develop employees. Any trainer can tell you that adults learn in different ways. The three primary methods are: Visual – See it Auditory – Hear it Kinesthetic – Do it A supervisor needs to understand how each member of his team learns so that coaching can be tailored to fit each agent. One to one discussion works for some while others need to role play or do a group activity. Supervisors should know their teams well enough to understand how best to coach each team member and be able to use multiple techniques to achieve success. Rewards and Recognition A performance improvement process must include some level of reward and recognition. Rewards do not have to be monetary. In fact, many find recognition to be the largest motivator. This recognition can come in many forms, from a shout out during a pre-shift meeting for a quality call to being asked to mentor a new team member. Your performance improvement process should be documented and shared with your team. It is important that this be a living document – updated regularly to ensure that all steps have been implemented and are being followed. As you calibrate the process be sure to make changes to the document so that it contains the most up to date information. Monitoring and feedback is only as good as the follow up to ensure growth. Without a plan to guarantee this follow up occurs, it will fall to the wayside. Ownership and accountability are essential to executing a successful quality monitoring and performance improvement process.

Tips To Improve Quality Monitoring

We monitor calls to ensure that the set quality standards are achieved. However, call monitoring is not only for identifying problems and agent opportunities, but also for detecting what is working and cascading it to the entire team. Even as social media evolves and an increasing number of customers are reaching out through these channels, many still turn to chat and inbound toll free numbers for assistance. That makes call quality monitoring an essential process to ensure that customers receive an exceptional customer experience on all interactions. Here are tips that can help you improve quality monitoring: 1: Ensure you get the small things correct You already know the details of your monitoring operations and how your agents perform. To ensure consistent improvement — get the small things right. For example, verify that the agents have correct information about a product or service and responses to possible questions from customers. Also ensure that agents follow the laid out interaction flow structure. With the small things in place, you can use your time to work on the big issues. 2: Don’t make the employees nervous Agents are usually apprehensive to having their interactions monitored. To get your employees engaged, you need to explain why you are carrying out monitoring? Emphasize your intention is to help them be successful and to ensure quality customer service is delivered. To help your employees buy into the idea of quality monitoring, make the exercise collaborative and inclusive. It will help your employees understand the process better and what is required of them as they interact with customers. Remember to reprimand in private and praise in public. If you know there is a bad interaction, do not choose to play it in a calibration session that is attended by a large group. Take the agent into an individual coaching session to discuss the interaction whether it be a chat, call, or social media contact. 3: Hire Third Party to Monitor When a professional third party monitors your team, they will produce unbiased evaluations. If you run a large contact center, you will need to have an internal team of quality analysts as well. They should stay calibrated with your third party quality team to ensure that both groups deliver consistent results. Make sure that your internal team members have the right skills to monitor and provide feedback to agents in order to maintain the company quality standards. 4: Reward Best Performers Rewards are a great source of motivation. Come up with monthly awards like “quality agent of the month”. Non-monetary incentives oftentimes work as well as those with a cost to the company. The recognition of a “job well done” motivates employees to excel. 5: Invest in coaching the agents You must invest in training and coaching your agents. In addition to new hire training, ongoing product and soft skill training will enable your agents to continue to grow. The time and resources you invest in training your employees will bear fruits in quality customer service. Also use technology to guide your analysts and agents through the procedures. It might be costly at first, but in the long run it will be worthwhile. 6: Gather Feedback It is not enough to set quality processes without a feedback gathering mechanism. Internal calibration meetings should include both agents and supervisors to allow for an open question and answer session. Customer satisfaction surveys often tell the real picture. It can be surprising to learn that sometimes customers do not perceive the same quality of service that the internal team is assured they are providing. 7: Monitor across multi channels Today’s customer interacts with contact centers via multiple channels. It is advisable to monitor all sales and service channels to make an informed assessment. In conclusion, these seven tips will help you improve your quality monitoring. A quality interaction should provide an exceptional customer experience and showcase high performing teams.

Top 10 Ways to Enhance Call Quality Monitoring

Without proper focus on quality monitoring best practices, it’s impossible to improve the efficiency of a contact center. The most important practices include those that link directly to ensuring customer satisfaction. First-call resolution has the greatest effect on a customer’s willingness to return to a company and recommend it to others. Call quality monitoring makes achieving ROI quicker and easier. The Important Metric of Customer Satisfaction The goal of quality monitoring is to identify the calls that fail to provide acceptable customer satisfaction and then determine the reasons. Once you figure out why customers aren’t satisfied, you can refine training and coaching, correct broken internal processes, bridge skills gaps or enhance workforce scheduling. The best way to achieve this is with call quality monitoring and evaluation. Here are some top tips that can help improve call quality monitoring in your call center. 1. Train, coach and monitor. Investing time and effort into training and coaching your agents enables and empowers them to improve their skills. The more effort you place on monitoring will ensure better customer service for your customers. 2. Assign quality ownership. When agents own a process, it can be calibrated to ensure effectiveness or improved and adapted to the changing needs of your business. 3. Set up a call quality forum. Ensure that all stakeholders agree on the criteria and reach consensus on what enhances call quality. 4. Reward best practice. Reward your staff for their high-quality work when you receive positive messages from customers. 5. Quality people ensure quality monitoring. Identify someone other than the supervisor to handle monitoring, training and evaluating. Then give them the resources to carry out methods to improve staff expertise. 6. Put information gathered to good use. Call quality monitoring provides valuable insight into how you are performing and what customers are experiencing. Use the information to further staff development. 7. You don’t have to commit to high-tech. Even basic monitoring is better than no monitoring. Start with simple activities, such as a spreadsheet that you manually complete. 8. Getting things right. Regular monitoring is an ideal method to maintain best practices and ensure that advisors get details right, such as greeting customers appropriately, adhering to the precise call structure and using positive phrases throughout the call. 9. Ensure that advisors understand the need for monitoring. Call quality monitoring shouldn’t be viewed as a negative activity. In the best contact centers, it is seen as an integral part of the skills program. 10. Provide feedback, support and more training. Feedback from the monitoring process should be objective, using a method of scoring and evaluation that is fair, consistent and regular. The most important thing is to provide support and further training when needed. Customer satisfaction rates should have an impact on call quality monitoring practices. With innovations in technology and social media channels, customers expect faster responses and more attentive service. Optimizing Your Call Monitoring Processes With regular quality monitoring, you can eliminate bad habits before they spread among the advisors and to your other call centers. Setting realistic targets is the cornerstone of quality assurance. Achieving them will be motivating and help pave the way for other more ambitious goals. Regular monitoring, feedback support and training are all essential tools for maintaining your high-quality customer service.

How to Facilitate a Successful Calibration Session

Calibration sessions are beneficial to overall call center performance and should be done regularly. Through consistently calibration, campaign leaders, trainers, and quality monitoring team have an opportunity to review customer interaction, compare quality scores using the evaluation form, and have productive discussion around the campaign. The goal is to have the groups’ scores within a 5% margin of variance. Today we will look at how to carry out a successful calibration session. Distribute materials Before starting the calibration session, you need to distribute the selected calls, chats, or emails to all participants for evaluation. The members should include managers, supervisors, quality monitoring team and any agents that you want to include. I have found that having the agents present whose interactions are being reviewed is a great learning exercise for them. They are able to hear the groups’ feedback directly and better understand the scoring process. Always review the interactions first to make sure that it will not be a negative experience for the agent. Anything that would result in a reprimand should be done in a private setting not in front of the calibration team. The Quality Monitoring team should be prepared for the session with pre-scored evaluation forms. Blank evaluation forms should be distributed with the interactions to be reviewed. The participants can complete the score before the session begins or as the review is taking place. However, they should have a score determined before the discussion begins to capture the variance. Typically 2 -3 interactions are enough for each session depending upon the length of each conversation to be reviewed. Quality Monitoring Team Acts as Facilitator The QA team should facilitate the session. Your SPOC (special point of contact) on the team will lead the discussion. He or she is in charge of time allocation for each participant, venue logistics, material distribution prior to the meeting and technology for reviewing the interaction. Sending out the summary from the session and providing follow up to interaction opportunities would also be part of the facilitator’s responsibilities. It is critical that any areas of improvement found during the calibration be communicated to the agent, coached, and monitored to ensure compliance. Establish meeting ground rules. To have a successful meeting, the facilitator and participants need to understand the ground rules and adhere to them. The aim is to ensure that everyone feels free to share and challenge the performance guidelines. To create that open environment, follow the below suggestions: 1. Set the start and end time in advance 2. Listen keenly without reacting or interrupting 3. Be honest and open throughout the discussions 4. Focus on consistency, not agreement or being right 5. Uphold confidentiality after the discussion 6. Ask all the participants to add onto the guidelines if they feel something is missing. They will easily follow them when they formulate them. Review Previous Discussion Start the process by reviewing the outliers, the highest and lowest scores. These two ratings are easier to discuss compared to the “almost exceeded” scores. If it is your second calibration session, use the previous discussions scores to locate any standard deviations. However, if it the first calibration session, you can set the scores. It will take time to get your team calibrated, therefore, do not rush to process. The key is to have frequent one-hour meetings. Review the first interaction After setting your calibration goal, it is time to play your first call, chat transcript or email exchange for group review. If the interaction had not been scored by participants previously, take time for the group to complete the evaluation including score. Compare the scores from each participant. The facilitator should keep track of all scores to judge variance. Put Together the Feedback Open the floor for the call feedback discussions. The facilitator should ensure all the comments go back to calibration goals or the call center goals. The focus is to clarify quality performance standards. The facilitator takes charge of the discussion by asking for specific feedback. For example, the positive things that the agent did during the call, the negative things that need improvement or suggested improvements in the particular negative. The final decision should be a consensus, which will benefit the company and the agent, resulting in a better customer experience. Review the quality standard definitions A key benefit of a calibration session is the opportunity to consider the quality standard definitions. The quality assurance team will note the suggested improvement points and compare with the corresponding point. These new definitions will offer guidance in the future in case they encounter the same issue. Write all the suggestions in the QSD (Quality Standard Document). Repeat the above process for the next calls. Bringing it together Start by distributing the materials, select the facilitator, set the meeting guidelines, review the previous discussion, review the first interaction, put together the feedback and finally review the quality performance standards. As you conduct a calibration session, always keep in mind the desired quality performance standards.

Quality Monitoring

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