Quality assurance programs are critical for improving call center performance and ensuring compliance with industry regulations. However, modern contact center quality assurance best practices have shifted beyond just compliance, focusing on creating a positive customer service experience.
So, what is contact center quality assurance? And how can you ensure your program is up to date? Below, we go over what quality assurance is and a few modern quality assurance best practices you’ll want to be aware of.
What is contact center quality assurance (QA)?
Traditionally, quality assurance (QA) refers to a series of processes you use to monitor and evaluate agent performance. The goal is to ensure agents comply with company policies and best practices, and to improve contact center agent efficiency.
So, what does this look like in practice? Most quality assurance programs include:
- Scorecards of agent performance
- Recommendations for individual agent improvements
- Select metrics to monitor for agent performance and compliance
- Review of industry compliance
- Small, select sample of customer interactions for assessment (often just 1-3% of all interactions)
How is the modern contact center quality assurance landscape changing?
Traditional QA often focuses on compliance, which, while important, shouldn’t be the only criteria for assessing the performance of your call center. Modern QA takes a more customer-centered approach to ensure that agents aren’t just compliant but proactively provide positive customer experiences through real-time coaching.
Traditional QA includes a manual review of a select sample of service interactions to uncover insights and recommend improvements. This sampling often occurs after interactions have taken place, and usually focuses on whether the agent adhered to company policies and industry standards.
Modern contact center quality assurance recognizes that compliance is only one part of the picture. After all, your agents can be 100% compliant with your company and industry policies but still provide an inadequate customer experience. Poor customer service can lead to higher customer turnover and negatively impact your bottom line.
Factoring the customer experience into your QA is critical since 96% of customers leave after one bad service interaction. It also means that recommending improvements to agents after the interaction is often too late. Modern QA often uses technology to provide proactive customer support that improves the customer experience in real time.
What are some key contact center QA metrics that businesses should be tracking?
A strong contact center quality assurance program starts with identifying critical metrics to track performance and progress towards your goals. Here are a few examples of key contact center metrics to consider tracking for your QA strategy:
- Net promoter score (NPS): How satisfied customers are with your services
- Average handle time (AHT): The average length of customer service interactions
- First call resolution rate (FCR): The ability to resolve a customer’s issue within the first interaction
- Customer satisfaction (CSAT) Score: evaluates customer satisfaction with a specific interaction
What are some modern contact center quality assurance best practices?
Now that you know how QA is shifting to a more customer-centered approach, how can you ensure you have a strong QA program that meets the needs of your contact center? Some modern contact center quality assurance best practices include:
- Use Agent Assist AI for real-time agent improvements
- Ensure you have a strong self-service knowledge base
- Review compliance often
We go over each in more detail below.
Use Agent Assist AI for real-time agent improvements
Technology such as Agent Assist AI can coach agents to make real-time improvements to the customer experience during live interactions. This is a stark contrast to traditional QA programs that often provide recommendations after a series of customer interactions.
However, this means recommendations often come too late. After all, a single bad interaction can increase the risk of customer churn. So, how does AI technology like contact center agent assist work?
It begins by collecting data during the customer support interaction. It analyzes what the customer is saying, the device in question and any previous interactions with the customer. Then, it identifies the most likely source of the issue. Afterward, it provides the agent with the most relevant troubleshooting guidance.
Tools like agent assist AI help agents deliver more accurate, timely resolutions to support tickets. This, in turn, helps improve the customer experience during the interaction itself, rather than waiting until afterward or after a series of interactions. This real-time improvement can help increase your company’s customer retention rate.
Ensure you have a strong self-service knowledge base
A strong self-service knowledge base is a critical part of modern contact center quality assurance best practices. Not only can it help evaluate customer interactions, but accurate knowledge bases are also critical for providing the fast and convenient tech support that customers expect.
As more companies turn to tools like conversational AI chatbots to provide instant customer support, you’ll want to evaluate your chatbots’ performance to ensure it’s meeting customer expectations. You can either analyze the conversation manually or use automated quality assurance tools to evaluate the bot’s performance.
However, the quality of the customer experience depends on the accuracy and freshness of your knowledge base. A centralized knowledge base should act as a single source of truth for both agents and customer self-service channels. Ensuring your information is up to date is critical for your bots and other self-service tools to improve key quality assurance metrics, such as net promoter score.
Review compliance often
Regularly checking contact center compliance is key for any quality assurance program. Regularly reviewing compliance can help ensure your contact center follows company and industry regulations.
This is an important step for any quality assurance program, especially if your company operates in heavily regulated industries like banking or finance; it can help your business avoid heavy fines or other penalties.
So, how often should you review compliance? Northwestern University recommends doing so at least twice a year. However, your company may need to do this more often depending, again, on your industry. This is critical for avoiding any headaches or breaking consumer trust by making sure your call center follows industry-specific regulations, especially regarding data security and customer privacy.
The future of call center quality assurance has arrived
Gone are the days of creating quality assurance programs that focus solely on compliance with company policies and industry-specific regulations. Modern contact center quality assurance centers on the customer experience in addition to compliance.
Some modern contact center quality assurance best practices include using Agent Assist AI for real-time agent improvements, verifying the quality of your knowledge base and reviewing compliance, you can adapt your contact center’s QA program for the modern era.
Modern contact center quality assurance best practices: Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
Below are some frequently asked questions about call center quality assurance.
What is contact center quality assurance (QA)?
Quality assurance, also known as QA, is the process you use to monitor and evaluate agent performance.
How is modern quality assurance different from traditional QA?
Traditional QA programs often focused strictly on compliance. Modern contact center QA programs go a step beyond that, focusing on the customer experience in addition to adherence to industry regulations.
What are some of the most important QA metrics that businesses should be tracking?
A nonexhaustive list of key contact center metrics to track includes:
- Net promoter score (NPS)
- Average handle time (AHT)
- First call resolution (FCR)
- Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)
How often should our company review compliance as part of our QA program?
Northwestern University recommends at a minimum, reviewing your compliance twice a year. However, specific numbers can vary depending on your industry.
Are you looking for more tips on adapting your contact center operations for the modern era? Check out our free e-book, The ultimate guide for optimizing your support. Inside, we go over how proactive customer service, self-serve tools and holistic support can help your company reduce churn and increase customer lifetime value. Download your free copy today.
