How to improve quality in a call center

In the “Global State of Customer Service Report” by Microsoft, 90% of people said that customer service is a decisive factor in choosing a brand and remaining loyal to it. According to the same report, 58% of consumers say they have stopped doing business with a company after a bad customer service experience. The report also states that 55% of customers have higher expectations for customer service than a year ago.

In an environment where every customer service interaction is crucial, it is essential to constantly improve quality control in a call center. In this article, we will provide a comprehensive guide with diverse tools and effective approaches to enhance your quality analysis process. Keep reading to discover how to optimize your operations and elevate customer satisfaction. We are here to assist you in this important aspect of your business.

What do we understand by quality in the call center?

Quality in a call center refers to ensuring that customer interactions meet established standards and quality expectations. It involves observing and analyzing interactions, using predefined criteria to evaluate team performance. Quality control involves measuring relevant aspects such as customer satisfaction, training effectiveness, budget efficiency, and the use of tools and equipment.

This continuous process helps prevent errors, improve service quality, and make informed decisions regarding training, hiring, and other internal aspects. Aligned with business goals, quality control drives operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, and overall organizational success.

By maintaining a constant focus on improving quality and optimizing processes, companies can deliver exceptional customer service, maintain high-quality standards, and gain a competitive edge in the market. This translates to increased efficiency, retention of satisfied customers, and a positive industry reputation, contributing to long-term growth and success of the organization.

How to improve the quality of your call center

Quality assurance in a call center requires gathering detailed data, such as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), to set goals and monitor performance. Moreover, it’s critical to involve team leaders and agents in the quality control strategy.

This process involves implementing some concrete strategies:

Have a clear quality control strategy

To measure and improve the quality of performance in a call center, it’s essential to set clear expectations and define how tracking and measurement will be done. This involves setting specific metrics, such as customer satisfaction, and reviewing performance regularly to address problem areas.

In addition, assigning someone the responsibility of managing quality control will ensure a smooth process. The implementation of workplace themes can also be used to focus agents on specific areas for improvement, leveraging creativity and organizing friendly competitions to motivate employees and improve results.

Define behaviors that are important for your business

When training employees on behaviors important for the business, it’s crucial to clearly define them. For example, if you want agents to be friendly with customers, you should provide specific examples of what that entails, both in words and actions, to achieve a high standard of quality in every interaction.

However, most importantly, agents should demonstrate empathy towards customers. Empathy drives customer loyalty, so agents should strive to understand and validate the customers’ feelings, regardless of whether they are satisfied or dissatisfied. Empathy can be trained by providing guidelines and suggesting phrases that might work well in different situations.

Hire selectively, train continuously

When reviewing hiring techniques, it’s important to look for the right qualities that contribute to the success of the agents. The success of your business depends on the right people, so it’s crucial to select carefully when looking to expand the support team. Look for managers who are excellent coaches and agents who are willing and motivated to develop their skills.

Once you have the right team, it’s important to provide them with proper training. Focus the training process on the behaviors that will generate the best customer experiences based on the established quality criteria. Provide real-life examples to show how to handle and how not to handle customer interactions. Training should not be seen as a one-time event but as a continuous investment that can lead to less turnover, increased satisfaction, and a better customer experience.

Make feedback and training a constant routine

Dedicating proper time and attention to agent training and addressing performance obstacles are key steps to achieving successful outcomes in the call center. By making them an integral part of daily or weekly operations, a coaching culture is created that allows employees to improve and thrive in their jobs. Providing useful feedback with specific examples helps to improve performance.

Focus on underperforming employees

It’s crucial to address and improve the performance of those agents with underperforming statistics, as this significantly impacts the overall results of the contact center. It’s important to avoid addressing agents in a negative way and instead offer a genuine approach of training and support.

By providing feedback, training, and extra attention to underperforming agents, you can help to improve their mood, performance, and overall quality control scores. Additionally, it’s necessary to focus on negative micro-behaviors and work on changing them, and collaborative training is key to helping agents understand the benefits of change. Remembering that small actions matter and that each agent can contribute to the success of the business by improving their habits is fundamental.

Motivate the agents

It’s important to motivate agents both with external rewards and intrinsic motivation. Gamification is an effective tool for motivating employees, turning work tasks into fun and competitive activities. In addition, providing regular breaks and positive recognition helps to bolster agents and improve the quality of service.

An effective strategy involves setting quality criteria, assigning scores, and rewarding outstanding performance. Recognizing and emotionally satisfying employees is more important than salary, as recognition and praise are highly motivating. Simple gestures such as praise, awards, and certificates can have a large impact in the workplace.

Promote self-evaluation and collaboration

Encourage your agents to self-evaluate by dedicating a few minutes after each shift to review their own quality control results. This will allow them to identify areas for improvement and recognize what they did well while the calls are still fresh in their mind. You can also encourage peer call practice, which promotes teamwork and allows for collaborative problem-solving.

Involving the agents in creating the quality control checklist gives them a sense of ownership and prevents them from feeling over-managed, while fostering a positive, team-focused work environment.

Monitor all customer service channels

Monitoring each channel is the first step to improving quality in a contact center. In an omnichannel environment, it’s crucial to have quality control across all channels used by the team, such as phone calls, email, live chat, and SMS.

Engage customers

To improve quality control in a call center, there are several effective strategies. You can use customer feedback through traditional methods, like tying in the Net Promoter Score, or adopt more innovative tactics, such as sharing highlighted call recordings and customer praises. This feedback is shared with management and used as examples for other agents.

Invest in quality analysis tools and technologies

If you’re looking to improve the quality in your call center, investing in quality analysis tools and technologies can make a difference. The choice of the right software, such as that offered by Upbe, is essential to streamline and optimize the quality control process in your call center:

• Upbe allows real-time tracking of agent stats and feedback, fostering their engagement and motivation.
• Upbe provides real-time statistics on agent performance, customer satisfaction, and overall contact center productivity, enabling you to identify areas for improvement and take corrective action.
• Upbe facilitates the automation of repetitive tasks and centralized management of quality control data, optimizing the process and reducing time spent on administrative tasks.
• Upbe allows the implementation of learning tools, such as call recordings, so agents can analyze actual conversations and learn from them.
• Upbe offers scalability, ease of use, and customizable features, adapting to the specific needs of your call center.

It’s important to choose the right software solution for your needs. Remember that investing in quality analysis tools and technologies not only improves service quality but can also boost customer satisfaction, contact center productivity, and agent retention, which in turn strengthens the reputation and success of your contact center.

Request a demo from our Upbe team and discover how our quality analysis software can empower your call center!