Quality Monitoring: Using Technology to Your Advantage

Which factors create a “quality call?” Is it one where rules are followed, every disclosure is perfectly delivered, and all security measures are met? Or, is it one where the agent builds rapport with the customer, exudes empathy, is polite, and delivers on the customer request?  The answer is obviously both – proper procedures mitigate company risk while the customer experience creates brand loyalty and repeat business.

Quality assurance professionals have a challenging role in the call center as they must define, measure, and improve quality, often serving two masters: Legal/Compliance and Sales.  What if we could remove legal/compliance concerns altogether, allowing quality assurance professionals to focus exclusively on customer loyalty?  I am not suggesting that we throw legal/compliance out, but instead use technology to ensure that regulatory, procedural, and security requirements are met on every call.  We can then allow the agents focus on building brand loyalty.

As an example, we no longer need to depend on agents reading legal disclosures, with the risk that they will deliver it incorrectly or not at all.  There are software solutions that require the agent to play a customized, recorded disclosure (while still on the call with the customer) before they can continue.  The disclosure is delivered perfectly every time. Technology can also reduce talk time by sending disclosures (in real time) to customers via text or email.  While not an option in all cases, many calls lend themselves to this approach.

Quality assurance professionals rely on call recordings to measure and improve quality.  If the call center takes credit cards, the call recordings will be incomplete.  That’s because PCI compliance requires that the audio and video recording be stopped during this part of the call.  As the “stop recording” and “resume recording” functions are often done manually by the agent, call recordings are often missing more than just this portion of the call.  Since credit card collection is a major component of procedural and security requirements, this poses a challenge for quality assurance.

Technology, again, is a great resource to resolve this. At KomBea, we developed SecureCall, so that customers can give agents their credit card number (and other sensitive information) using their phone keypad.  In this way, the agent is on the phone the entire time, but cannot see or hear the information – and neither can the call-recording system. This means that the entire call is recorded and used for quality monitoring.  At the same time, sensitive information is protected and we don’t rely on a manual agent process for this.

Let’s use an analogy of protecting the valuables in your home. You lock the doors, store valuables out of sight, and even install an alarm system. While are all great steps, what if you forget to lock your doors or set the alarm? SecureCall is the equivalent of removing the valuables from your home, so it is less of an issue if you forget to lock a door or set an alarm.  There is nothing to steal.

I recommend that call center leaders look to new technologies that provide greater compliance and security, with almost no reliance on agent training and performance to achieve.  These solutions are affordable and much easier to implement than that training a fluid work force. When we can put more training emphasis on building trust, connecting emotionally, and creating positive experiences, the investment in technology will pay for itself in more business.