What is Call Center Quality Monitoring and Why is it Important?

“This call may be monitored for call center quality assurance.”

Anyone who’s ever called a contact center would recognize this familiar line — and for good reason. Call quality monitoring is an essential piece of the puzzle when it comes to increasing and maintaining high service levels and customer satisfaction (CSat) scores.

Quality management is also a great way to find holes in a call center agent’s skill set and address them head on with specific training. Although most contact centers are following some sort of quality management strategy, many are lacking in specific key areas. We’re happy to help you fill in the gaps with our all-in-one guide to call center quality monitoring.

What is Call Center Quality Monitoring?

As its name indicates, call center quality monitoring is any action or strategy that a management team employs to track the quality of agent interactions in a contact center.

To get the full picture of what call center quality monitoring encompasses, it’s important to first understand the basics of what a high-quality call should sound like. A few key attributes are:

• Quick call answer time
• Friendly and warm greeting
• Active listening by the agent
• Clear communication
• Effective questioning
• Fast handling and resolution time
• No or low transfers

Why is Quality Monitoring so Important?

Happy customers are at the heart of a call center’s mission. The more you assess and evaluate your customer interactions, the better the customer experience will be – and the more likely those customers are to speak highly of your contact center to other potential clients.

Impressive CSat scores are what all contact centers should be striving for, and your first step is ensuring all your customers are receiving streamlined and helpful service from each of your agents. When call center managers are properly monitoring phone calls (and other contact channels) for quality, there’s a greater chance for CSat improvement and of maintaining these higher scores over time.

Note, it’s also important to employee engagement and growth to understand agent performance on an individual level. If an agent is consistently delivering top-notch customer service, they’re likely more engaged and happier at work, which leads to more authentic customer interactions in the long run as well.

5 Steps to Monitor Call Quality Like a Pro

1. Set business goals.

When it comes to call center success, strategy should be your first step. Decide what your goals are—once you start your quality monitoring, what will be your key performance indicators (KPIs) of choice?

Decide on a CSat score you think your team can achieve and consider other important KPIs like a high first-call resolution rate and a low average handle time. Add these up to reveal your total quality score. Have meetings with staff to go over this new strategy and make sure everyone’s on the same page.

2. Record and monitor at random—openly.

To monitor for call quality, you may choose to listen in on live calls or listen to call recordings. Either way, you must ensure that both the agent and customer are aware that call monitoring is in progress. While listening, try asking yourself these questions:

• Is the agent greeting the client in a professional yet friendly manner?
• Are the correct questions being asked?
• Do the customers sound content with the information they’re being given?
• Is the call being managed efficiently and quickly?
• What is the agent doing well?
• Where could the agent stand to improve?

3. Gather your customers’ opinions.

For accurate CSat scores, it’s imperative that you develop a quick survey to either be done on the call after completion or sent via email to be done online. Your customers’ opinions matter most and will help you determine in which areas your agents are excelling and which they could use some fine tuning.

4. Schedule regular check-ins with agents.

To improve in their roles, agents need to understand where there’s room for growth. Be sure to schedule bi-weekly or monthly check-ins with your agents to provide feedback and track their progress. When given the information they need to shine, even the most inexperienced agents can start contributing to the high CSat and quality scores you’re aiming for.

5. Focus on process improvement.

Now that you have some insight into your contact center’s call quality, try to identify areas of improvement in your business processes. Does your scheduling system need some work? Are there ways you can help to reduce call spikes and take some pressure off agents? Is there any technology that may be helpful for the contact center as a whole?

Don’t Forget to Monitor and Analyze All Your Channels

Most modern contact centers are moving towards an omnichannel business model where other methods of communication are used for customer interactions. If your company uses channels like online chats or email, be sure to include these in your quality monitoring strategy. Randomly check in and use a similar scoring system as you would for calls. Remember, happy customers lead to better and more business, so it’s essential to ensure the entire customer experience is accounted for from start to finish.