Evolving Needs of Subject Matter Expertise In Contact Center Quality

--By Saurabh Sharma--

Quality assurance and quality practices have been there for ages, and we have been evolving with time. Similarly, call centres which organizations traditionally run in-house, have evolved with large BPOs coming in as subject matter experts, and outsourcing of this is very evident these days. Having large-scale multiple location centers for medium to large B to C companies has become a norm. By outsourcing the nerve center, it has become imperative to closely monitor what customers are trying to communicate through your call center. Quality assurance is one of the key channels to understanding customers' voices. Keeping an independent agency specializing in quality has never been as crucial as ever. An agency without bias for your business to keep an eye on the radical changes as per the new normal.

Below are my thoughts on how to do it and the best approaches to execute it. 

To start with, there would be many ways quality assurance for a Call Center can be gauged, one of which is a transactional audit. Straight away, we can jump on to the ways we can do these audits. Would list some of them below:

●     Recorded call audits - You have a logger, and the quality team can listen to the calls.

●      Mystery calls to call centre - You can have a surprise element when you anonymously call your centre to gauge how a typical response comes. For Example, you are an insurance major and want to know how your contact centre is responding to a newly launched policy or whether they are speaking about all the USPs.

●     Mystery number placement for outbound centres - so you add some sample numbers in calling numbers to gauge the effectiveness of our calling process. For Example, your Credit card sales team cannot convert, and you want to know why customers are not responding to them.

●      Written communication - Integrated email system which records each response to the customer through Email/ Chat 

●      IVR Experience - Auditors periodically review the IVR tree and its practicality considering the current market trends

            ●     Chatbot Algorithms - Regular user assessments of the bot you have deployed and the response relevance.

While we listed the key types of CC Audits, it is not as straightforward as it seems. When there are large numbers involved, for Example, Multiple Centers, hundreds of people, thousands of scenarios/resolutions, and lakhs of interactions every month, it takes a series of steps to get it to write. Let's discuss the 5 key things to keep in mind while planning the call centre audits. 

1. Sampling & Cycle - It is important to understand the sampling for each Line of Business (LOB) and each centre in case you operate out of multiple centres. Coverage of each frontline staff within a 90 to 95 percent confidence interval for correct statistical numbers is fundamental. This calculator will shortly be available on QDegrees Website. Machine learning modules are now available that help select key scenarios for calls to be picked up for audits. Now the second part Cycle, you need to intelligently look at how the management or stakeholders look at KPIs monthly and how these reports are part of the management discussions. This gives you leverage to keep quality at the top of key stakeholders' minds.

2. Audit Monitoring Sheet Creation - While creating the Transaction Monitoring sheet (TM sheet), keep a long-term view of the KPIs you want to track and monitor for the next 6 to 12 months. You would always want to have consistency when you are dealing with a large number of frontline teams. It is also critical to time its basis organization's long-term strategy to align with the organization's goal.

3. Automated Audit Tool - If you have an audit tool that allows you to have multiple types of TM sheets considering different LOBs and feedback mechanisms for front liners, it gives you an added advantage, especially with a lot of front liners now shifting to work from home. There are more aspects like online dashboards to look at during the cycle and course correction, alert mechanisms on some critical to business deliveries, and close looping of the alerts. You can also ask for a Demo of SimpliQ, one of such tools developed by QDegrees with more than 7 years of experience.

4. RCAs/ Improvements - When you have ensured that you are getting all the updates and alerts online, the next step is to create a funnel for the call to action. When you start getting alerts, and they are getting into required categories, you can start creating action plans basis Root Cause analysis to ease customer pain. You can segregate low-hanging items mostly pertaining to People and Processes, while system-level corrections may take longer. If your program does not end with a call to action to improve the quality of experience or business achievement, it will always remain a cost centre.

 5. Results - There are 2 kinds of outcome management is always looking one is the qualitative aspect, and the second one is monitory. If you want to hit the nail on its head, you need to connect the dots of improvement in quality to business outcomes. That is why the emphasis on Sampling and TM sheet is required; you would have to have quality improvements converting into numbers for business. That is how you get all the attention to quality assurance needs in an organization.

 To conclude, I would stress that the need to keep specialized quality functions is important since the workforce engaged in selling and service is now operational on the Work from Home Model. New technologies are evolving with many opportunities for improvement/customization; this can be specific to your organization's current lifecycle. Technologies are evolving where call interactions can be segregated as positive or negative, as your loggers can now have neural engines configured.

We would have the technology to audit some of the parameters on 100% calls because computers would do it, and we won't have to deploy the current level of manpower for basics they would do much more intelligent work in the time saved by machines. 

E-Learning and assessment tools have become vital when we want to check on knowledge enhancements and delivery.

I rest these thoughts with you to write what you think should be the approach. Write, discuss, and debate, as no thought is complete without your opinions.