It is always hard to answer a question directly of whether you should do something or not because I am not in your shoes. The proper answer depends on your business focus, set of expectations, and defined business goals and KPIs. It would be arrogant to tell you that you have to focus only on how good your Call center is performing. Or that you should engage another call center for better customer experience.
The fact is that communication has never been more accessible. It is done through different platforms and devices and at any time now. Customers are continuously mastering different ways to find support to their requests and doubts about a service ar a product. The catch is to recognize what kind of communication your customers prefer. Whether it is on social platforms or it is a live chat, live interaction, or self-service portal. It would be much more relaxing if we could stream our resources to provide support to one preferable communication channel, but we are living in a complex world. Everything is much more complicated, where more and more things correlate. If a customer is not able to find an answer to its request by its own, inevitably, it will seek other opportunities to contact your business. Picture customers jumping around from place to place (where I mean communication channels), in their journey to provide you with feedback or to ask you something about a product or service.
Add to this vividness, high expectations they have about how you (your business) provide the information to their request. Customers notice whether they get a resolution in the first contact with no need to call you further. They care if an agent is knowledgeable. They are impressed if an agent was kind, friendly, helpful, professional. Be aware that today, these expectations are common to both live and written communication.
And somehow our story has led spontaneously to the concept of customer expectations. Measuring those expectations is through the quality of your business and support. The quality of a call center is assessed by whether agents are capable in providing all the information, whether the customers’ requests are resolved at the first contact, how quickly information can be provided, what is the style of communication between a business and its customers.
Are you aware of all of these aspects of your call center support your customers pay much attention? Probably. And do you have a system in place with stable and precisely defined metrics and procedures that will ensure quality in your work? Do you have a framework for suggestions on what to improve, so your customer care is capable of boosting that secret ingredient that will differ your business?
And now, to bring this story to the cut, here are three facts for you to keep in mind with Quality Assurance as a system within your customer care to maintain and improve quality of your support.
Here are three crucial aspects of Call center Quality Assurance:
Aspect 1: Use reliable data to enhance agent performance
Use quality assessment data to praise agents’ achievement, encourage positive behaviors, and coach those areas that require improvement. What is essential, is that agents must have complete knowledge of the metrics and criteria they are evaluated on and of what makes a quality interaction. Clearly outline the criteria for their success and make them feel prepared to succeed in their role. They should also be involved in the analysis of their interactions as this will enable them to learn from their mistakes but also accept and utilize their feedback and suggestions. Use data collected through quality monitoring and share them across the Contact Center. Therefore, the quality assessment program is vital in training and coaching as it reveals the opportunities for refresher training and discovers the areas for additional education. Monitoring and coaching are fundamental tools in driving overall agent performance and affecting the quality of service.
Aspect 2: Lower response time with fewer resources
Some of the key metrics to measure effectiveness of a Call center interactions are service level (SLA), response rate, and abandonment rate. These metrics are the leading statistical indicators of Call center productivity. They are partially impacted by AHT (Average Handling Time) that stands for average time spent on an interaction. Quality Assurance system, as a set of standards how agents perform and act upon each interaction, drive agents to the most efficient way to handle communication. When the Quality Assurance system is employed to change agents’ behavior for the long term, a Call center will often find that a decreased AHT is the by-product. When this happens, a Call center can achieve its service level and response time objectives with fewer resources.
Aspect 3: Create positive emotion and excellent customer experience
Improvement of customer satisfaction and creating a positive experience to your customers is a strong motivator. Quality Assurance system is an agent’s foundation for delivering service beyond expectation. When agents have a set of guidelines to follow, and they use those guidelines, it enables them to identify the critical points of customer’s issue to provide them with a solution. As a result of this guided process, customer satisfaction increases, and customer experience is improved. If agents exhibit the right attitudes, no matter how emotional the customer may be, the agent is capable of defusing the situation and providing a pleasant experience.
