During a facilitated discussion with call center executives from several different industries (restaurant, healthcare, financial, industrial supply, call center outsourcing, nutrition and utility), ICMI identified two key findings:
1.Call centers find it difficult to find the return on investment for their QA programs. By comparing and referencing your center’s COQ snapshot with internal benchmarks on Quality contacts and criteria for Quality effectiveness, you should begin to be able to identify and track the financial ROI and overall effectiveness of your QA program.
2.Quality Monitoring processes and results are rarely optimized in agent evaluation and coaching. Once you’ve identified what additional contributions agents can make and what aspects they can and can’t control, you can begin an effective coaching and evaluation process.
Finding the ROI in Call Center Quality Programs
From call recording and analysis technologies to the people employed to put them to use, the investment in Quality Monitoring is on the rise in call centers. Call center executives realize that there is great value to be had from Quality Monitoring.
While spending on Quality Monitoring is on the rise, the value of quality programs is only vaguely known.
The adherence to compliance standards and other regulations specific to various industries is a well-known goal and product of quality programs. However, the strategic value to organizations is something that is rarely associated with such programs.
The call center is uniquely positioned to relay intelligence and information from the customer (or the voice of the customer) to other business units within the organization. The Quality Monitoring program is an excellent means for capturing this intelligence and information. Capitalizing this intelligence creates strategic value for the call center.
Whether information is captured via customer satisfaction surveys (which ICMI recommends in conjunction with call—and other channel—monitoring) or simply through the analysis of recorded calls and contacts, it is actionable intelligence that can improve the organization across the board.
Small strides have been made in understanding this value: Quality Monitoring intelligence (especially during live monitoring) is frequently used to identify less-than-optimal customer experiences in time to “save” calls; and some call centers are adopting the use of speech analytics technologies to apply rules related to business intelligence (mentions of competitors’ names, caller emotions—especially anger). But very few call centers have developed processes for turning so much information into actionable intelligence. They do not have formal and robust communication with other business units by which to share such intelligence on a regular basis.
But who should be held accountable for this—and how? It was suggested in the group that executive pay should be tied to QA program results. How would such a seemingly drastic measure be accomplished given the seemingly vague nature of QA programs and their measurability?
It is, indeed, possible to measure the financial ROI and overall effectiveness of a QA program (yes, this means going beyond the measurement of “yes/no” hard skills at the agent level and even beyond the basics of contact analysis).
First, you have to determine the cost of your QA program, or your Cost of Quality (COQ). ICMI’s method for doing this is described in detail in the white paper “Discover Why Contact Center Quality Doesn't Measure Up—And What You Can Do About It.”
Second, you have to put QA in its proper perspective alongside other strategic measures in the contact center. For example, it is important to recognize the link between Quality and Service Level, as well as its link with Response Time. To find these and other links, you need to know the answer to the question “What is a quality contact?”
A quality contact will meet these criteria:
•The customer does not get a busy signal when using a telephone or “no response” from your organization’s website.
•The customer is not placed in the queue for too long.
•The agent provides the correct response.
•All data entry is correct.
•The agent captures all needed/useful information.
•The agent has “pride in workmanship.”
•The contact was necessary in the first place.
•The customer receives the correct information.
•The customer has confidence the contact was effective.
•The customer doesn’t feel it necessary to check up, verify or repeat the contact.
•People “down the line” can correctly interpret the order.
•The customer is not transferred around.
•The customer doesn’t get rushed.
•The customer is satisfied.
•Unsolicited marketplace feedback is detected and documented.
•The call center’s mission is accomplished.
When your Quality program is effective, you should see a reduction in the following:
•Escalation of calls and complaints to higher management
•Repeat contacts from customers
•Callbacks to customers for missing or unclear information
•Cancellations
•Cost of closing accounts
•Handling product returns
•Unnecessary service calls
•Wrong problems getting fixed
•Calls to customer relations
•Negative publicity from angry customers
•Diversion of agents to activities that should be unnecessary
•Agents taking the heat for mistakes made by others
•Bad moves, adds and changes
•Shipping expenses to reship, express mail
•Inaccurate inventory status
•Loss of referrals
By comparing and referencing your center’s COQ snapshot with internal benchmarks on Quality contacts and criteria for Quality effectiveness, you should begin to be able to identify and track the financial ROI and overall effectiveness of your QA program.
Optimizing Quality Processes and Results in Agent Monitoring and Coaching
The discussion yielded agreement that “quality equals accuracy.” ICMI asserts that quality also equals intelligence.
While agents are often scored on their adherence to scripts and internal and external compliance and regulatory requirements, they not as frequently coached on how to improve the quality of customer interactions and transactions; they are even less frequently coached on how to glean intelligence from these interactions and transactions and articulate them in a meaningful way up the chain of command and influence.
It is important to note, however, that accuracy is important. While saying the customer’s name three times during the call may not improve quality on the customer’s end, such things as entering data correctly and reading transaction rules or notices are important. It cannot be stressed enough that to improve scores in these areas, coaching sessions should include communicating to agents the important role these activities have in the success of the contact—and the organization.
While there is a positive trend in call centers to incorporate the voice of the customer, few contact centers recognize that agents can serve a valuable role as “amplifiers” for the voice of the customer. These frontline interactions are an opportunity to capture information about not just how the customer’s interaction with the contact center went, but valuable insight about what the customer thinks about the organization’s products and processes—and about how the customer feels your organization (and even other organizations) values them.
Getting a handle on quality has the potential to help foster a learning organization—through systems, processes and pooled expertise on products and customers. Build a team that is focused on capturing, analyzing, sharing and using value-added information across the organization and make sure this intelligence is part of your quality program and that your coaching and monitoring efforts support these opportunities.
Additionally, agents can give valuable feedback on many resource-draining outcomes (see the list above on the impact of effective quality programs).
And, while agents cannot control all aspects of making every contact a quality contact (see above: What is a quality contact?), they can be coached—even hired and trained—to take control of many of them.
Take the opportunity to actively seek feedback, ideas and input from those closest to the work with customers—your frontline agents. But, remember that you can turn that feedback and those ideas and input back into coaching opportunities to develop analytic and problem-solving skills at the agent level.
Once you’ve identified what additional contributions agents can make and what aspects they can and can’t control, you can begin an effective coaching and evaluation process.
