In an ever-evolving world where customer expectations are continually rising, call centers play a pivotal role in any business strategy. They are the voice of the company, the link that connects the organization with its current and potential customers. The efficiency, personalization, and speed with which interactions are handled can make the difference between a successful and a failed customer experience. To ensure this process is carried out in the best possible way, it’s essential to implement a rigorous and effective quality control in the call center.
Quality analysis, or Quality Assurance (QA), is a vital strategy that allows monitoring, tracking, and optimizing customer service requests. This process should be carried out by informed and well-trained agents who must provide accurate, consistent, and easy-to-understand responses for customers. But beyond this, quality control should be correctly measured and should be a constant effort to improve processes and the efficiency of the call center.
In this article, we will address essential questions such as: why is the implementation of quality control necessary in a call center? And how to identify and adopt best practices? Through the following sections, we will provide in-depth details about the concept of quality control in call centers, improvement strategies, and the presentation of some key tools to optimize the quality control strategy.
What is quality analysis in a call center?
Quality Assurance (QA) in call centers is an essential comprehensive procedure to ensure customer interactions meet the defined business goals. This procedure focuses on identifying frequent customer issues, enhancing user experience, and standardizing communication methods. By applying this quality control, operational efficiency increases, and customer satisfaction is boosted, thus aligning with the business goals.
This constant monitoring and improving of the call center’s performance generates valuable information that can be related to customer satisfaction, the effectiveness of employee training programs, the feasibility of budget strategies, and the efficacy of the current commercial software and equipment.
This tracking and evaluation of the team’s performance are based on previously defined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). As each company has its own goals, it’s crucial that these KPIs are in tune with these specific objectives.
How is call quality evaluated?
The monitoring of call quality is typically carried out by the team supervisor, the quality control specialist, or the quality analyst of the recovery center. Generally, there are two types of information, also referred to as quality criteria, which are analyzed when monitoring quality control in recovery centers:
- Call and customer indicators: these include average response time, call duration, customer satisfaction ratings, NPS scores, CSAT ratings, productivity rates, among others.
- Quality control evaluation: this is carried out by a team supervisor or quality control specialist on a selection of customer interactions to evaluate problem-solving and professionalism according to a predetermined dashboard.
There are three categories of quality control structures for recovery centers: operational, tactical, and strategic. Effective recovery centers tend to employ a mix of these structures to manage quality control at different levels of the company.
Operational
Operational quality control in a call center is a quantitative method that focuses on measuring daily customer service key performance indicators (KPIs) to accurately evaluate the performance of agents and the center as a whole. This approach is oriented towards micro-interactions, gathering daily data using monitoring tools and periodically evaluating them.
Despite being useful for detecting short-term solutions, the operational method tends to focus on a micro level and may not provide a complete vision or address the root causes of problems. Therefore, although it can offer immediate solutions, it may lack potential to achieve long-term improvements.
Tactical
The tactical approach to quality control is oriented towards observing and resolving general concerns that influence customer service. This method focuses on improving the quality of the service as a whole by detecting and addressing the root causes of low performance in the call center. Issues usually addressed by a tactical framework include low customer satisfaction rates, potential gaps in agent training, and the efficiency of team workflows.
Although tactical solutions like restructuring or implementing new training may require more time and resources than operational solutions, they usually result in long-term solutions and a stronger, more efficient team.
Strategic
The strategic approach to quality control aims to ensure that the call center is aligned with the overall business objectives of the organization. This methodology, which originates in senior management, seeks to answer key questions, such as the integration of customer service within the overall business objectives, improving customer loyalty and retention, and employee retention in the contact center. Focusing on broad questions that address the culture, standards, and goals of the organization, the strategic approach pursues long-term solutions to challenges facing the entire company.
What tools can we use to analyze quality in the call center?
There are various strategies to ensure that operators in a call center provide high-quality customer service, including:
Call recordings
Quality analysis in a call center is based on a series of techniques and tools to ensure excellent service. Call recording facilitates capturing the interactions between customers and operators, providing a means to evaluate the quality of service and provide constructive feedback.
It’s an effective method for controlling and improving quality, by identifying areas that need improvement and patterns in the service. Voice and text analysis is also important, focusing on aspects such as the keywords used, voice tone, and sentiment in communications, providing additional information for the identification of recurring problems and the generation of performance reports.
Quality Audits
Audits are a common practice in call centers to ensure quality, consisting of the random selection of agents and the review of their calls in order to identify areas of improvement and recognize outstanding skills.
Quality management software is vital for tracking and evaluation in call centers, as it automates tasks, collects and processes data, records interactions, and provides essential features such as automatic call recording, voice and conversation analysis, multichannel care, performance metrics tracking, automatic surveys, and customizable dashboards to organize relevant information. Additionally, it allows the implementation of customized evaluation forms for a quick and accurate assessment of agent performance, as well as issuing alerts when specific attention is needed.
Customer rating surveys
Customer rating surveys serve to gather feedback on the quality of service provided by the call center agents. These surveys can be issued after each interaction or periodically to collect comments. They allow the discovery of aspects that need improvement in the work of call center agents, as well as highlighting areas where their performance is exceptional.
Performance evaluations
These evaluations allow for identifying areas where improvement is needed and highlighting the strengths of the call center agents. Furthermore, they are an effective way to detect training needs of the agents. Through scoring and rating agents, supervisors review calls and assign ratings based on pre-established criteria. This tool is vital for the professional growth of agents and for the constant improvement of service in the call center.
The use of live agent tracking tools is crucial to maintain quality standards in a call center. This tool allows for recording of the agents’ interactions and monitoring their performance. This data is useful for detecting areas that need improvements and providing useful feedback. Real-time tracking is vital to provide quality service and solve problems instantaneously.
Process mapping and optimization
Process mapping is an efficient method to improve quality in a call center. This method involves tracing each step of your call center’s processes to identify possible faults and opportunities for improvement. Although process mapping can be a complex task, there are numerous resources that can make this task easier.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning tools
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are powerful tools that can be employed to analyze large volumes of data coming from calls, identifying patterns and trends. These technologies can help predict customer needs, optimize call distribution, and personalize customer service.
Softwares based on these technologies, such as Upbe, are fundamental pieces in the analysis of call quality, as they automate tasks, collect and analyze data, and record conversations. Such applications allow real-time tracking of key performance indicators (KPIs), generating reports that are automatically sent to call center managers. These programs are also useful to verify the accuracy of scripts and procedures before implementing them, as well as to monitor the quality of calls.
For example, in response to the needs of a telecommunications company, we helped optimize essential processes in customer service, handling of recoveries and claims, and resolution of incidents, processing a total of 155,760 call minutes per month. The results obtained highlight, among others, an 8% increase in the recovery rate, a 3% decrease in the number of detractors, and a 31% reduction in official claims.
If you are ready to take your call center to the next level, contact us today to start your journey towards optimization and success.
To measure quality in a call center, it is important to implement strategies and tools such as operational, tactical, and strategic quality control. This involves monitoring and evaluating key performance indicators (KPIs), conducting performance reviews, using call recording analysis and customer satisfaction surveys. Additionally, process mapping and improvement techniques can be employed, as well as artificial intelligence and machine learning tools. These measures allow for evaluating and improving agent performance, identifying areas for improvement, optimizing processes, and aligning the call center with business objectives.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) in a call center are key metrics used to evaluate and measure performance and service quality. These indicators cover different aspects, such as average response time, average call handling time, customer satisfaction, Net Promoter Score (NPS) ratings, productivity metrics, and issue resolution. These indicators provide both quantitative and qualitative insights into the call center’s performance and help identify areas for improvement, detect trends, and assess the fulfillment of established objectives.
To control the quality of customer service in call centers, it is crucial to implement a comprehensive quality control approach. This involves using tools such as call monitoring, performance evaluations, customer satisfaction surveys, and data analysis. Through operational, tactical, and strategic quality control, the performance of agents can be evaluated, areas for improvement identified, processes optimized, and the call center aligned with business objectives.
A quality agent in a call center plays a crucial role in maintaining service excellence. They supervise interactions between agents and customers, evaluating agent performance based on predefined criteria. They also identify areas for improvement and strengths, highlighting training needs for agents and recommending procedural modifications to increase the center’s effectiveness. Through agent evaluation and scoring, the quality agent contributes to the professional development of agents and the continuous improvement of service in the call center.
