What are QA metrics? Examples for call centers, aligning with your goals and best practices
Learn what call center quality assurance (QA) metrics are, and how your company can better align with call center QA best practices to achieve the bes...
For many call centers, improving call center quality assurance is crucial. An effective quality assurance program provides numerous benefits, such as:
- Boosting customer satisfaction
- Building customer loyalty
- Ensuring that agents are meeting expectations
- Maintaining compliance with regulations
- Improving efficiency
- Lowering costs
We’ve curated this collection of expert tips and best practices for improving call center quality assurance that you can implement today.
In this article:
- What is Call Center Quality Assurance?
- How We Gathered These Tips for Improving Call Center Quality Assurance
- Meet Our Panel of Call Center Leaders & QA/Compliance Professionals
- Top Tips for Improving Call Center Quality Assurance
- Frequently Asked Questions
Whitepaper
Call Center Quality Assurance Guide
Learn how to apply the latest QA techniques at your organization
What is Call Center Quality Assurance?
Call center quality assurance is a systematic process of monitoring, evaluating, and improving every interaction to ensure the quality of service provided to customers meets or exceeds expectations. Traditionally, this involved listening to a set number of calls per agent — whether live or recorded — and providing feedback and coaching based on the observations.
Today, technology has streamlined the process of quality assurance. Conversation analytics solutions like CallMiner Eureka automatically monitor 100% of customer interactions across every channel — live chat, phone, email, social media, etc.
Conversation intelligence platforms leverage natural language processing (NLP), artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) technologies to capture, transcribe, analyze, and score every interaction in terms of quality. By analyzing every customer interaction and automating the QA review process, conversation intelligence solutions provide insight into the quality of processes throughout the call center and identifying areas for improvement.
How We Gathered These Tips for Improving Call Center Quality Assurance
To uncover some of the best tips and strategies for improving call center quality assurance, we reached out to a panel of call center managers, QA professionals, compliance professionals, and business leaders and asked them to answer this question:
“What is your number 1 tip for improving call center quality assurance?”
Top Tips for Improving Call Center Quality Assurance
#CX requires constant improvement. In fact, many customers would walk away from a brand they love after just one bad experience.
— CallMiner, Inc. (@CallMiner) June 6, 2023
Learn how a hybrid approach to automated QA can help your organization improve customer outcomes and experiences:
Read on to learn what our panel had to say about their top tips for improving call center quality assurance.
Leo Ye
Leo is the CEO and Co-founder at Cubo.
“My number 1 tip for improving call center quality assurance is…”
Concentrate on agent training and development as a call center manager's top recommendation for enhancing call center quality assurance. Not only can a team of experienced and well-trained agents increase customer happiness and retention, but they can also shorten call handling times, boost productivity, and minimize mistakes.
To guarantee that agents have the abilities, information, and resources required to deliver superior service, quality assurance should begin with appropriate training and ongoing development initiatives.
Simon Bacher
Simon Bacher is the CEO and Co-Founder of Simya Solutions and Co-Founder of Ling.
“My number 1 tip for improving call center quality assurance is to…”
Have a clear QA strategy.
If you want to improve the quality of your operations, have a clear strategy in mind. This means that you are aware of what you want and the steps you would take to reach the endpoint. This method would hold you accountable and make sure that improvements are underway.
Once this is done, you can monitor all customer support channels. This includes mediums such as phone calls, emails, and live chat.
Cale Loken
Cale Loken is an SEO Specialist and the CEO of 301Consulting, an SEO agency that provides a comprehensive range of SEO services for all.
“Data is the most important in maintaining the quality assurance of a call center…”
It helps management to identify the problems early on and make changes quickly. This prevents any employee issues from being carried forward toward the customer.
Management has a solution to the problem even before it arises by sharing real-time analytics with the team to keep them on track. So keeping an eye on numbers allows us to reduce the chances of any issue going unresolved.
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson is the owner and CEO of Prime Seamless Gutters & Roofing.
“One of my favorite tips is to…”
Assign quality assurance to an agent.
You don't always need a separate team or department for quality assurance. An effective way is to let one agent from each team monitor QA.
You need an experienced worker to handle QA, but they don't always need to be a supervisor. Agents can be as effective if provided with the right training and tools. It also encourages them to improve and take ownership of their work.
Brittany Mendez
Brittany Mendez is a QA Analyst at FloridaPanhandle.com.
“Many call centers take advantage of recorded lines in order to…”
Listen back to the problem that a customer had and the solution that the employee offered. This is also great for training purposes in the call center environment as well.
Instead of listening back to a recorded line, however, I found that doing quarterly evaluations by calling and acting like a customer yourself is a better way to see how your employees are handling various types of situations. That way, you can develop their skillset by asking certain questions they may not have been asked before.
Ira Perlstein
Ira Perlstein co-founded BIG Messages with Glenn Lieberman in 1997. With over 45 years of combined experience, their company is recognized for delivering dependable and personalized professional answering services across the nation, earning a reputation for expertise, hands-on approach, and consistency.
“My number 1 tip for improving call center quality assurance is to…”
Make sure your agents get regular training and coaching. This can help agents stay up-to-date with the latest processes, policies, and technologies, as well as improve their communication and customer service skills.
Not only will this help your agents excel at their jobs, it will make your customers happy, too. When you invest in your agents, everyone wins!
Cesar Cruz
Cesar Cruz, a.k.a. Rickie Cruz, is an American fashion designer, entrepreneur, and the co-founder of Sebastian Cruz Couture. As an expert in social media management, he has built a huge network to provide immediate exposure for his brand around the world.
“Treat all departments as equals…”
In order to motivate quality assurance in any team, business leaders need to treat all departments as equals. For example, if you treat the concerns of your customer service department as less urgent than the queries from the marketing department, the employees from the service team will be less concerned with providing quality care to your customers. For a business to function properly, all teams need to work together and coexist seamlessly.
David Louvet
David Louvet is the Founder and CEO of Innovet Pet Products. He obtained a B.S. in BioChemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara as well as a Certificate in Nuclear Medicine from Charles Drew University.
“There are many ways to improve call center quality assurance…”
One of the most important tips is to track your team’s performance using a call center agent performance scorecard. This can help you identify areas for improvement and provide regular training and coaching sessions to your team members.
Robert Leonard
Robert is the CEO of Aimvein, an eCommerce shop for medical equipment and devices.
“Improving call center quality assurance starts with…”
Creating and maintaining a culture of continuous improvement. To do this, it's essential to understand the key components that make up good customer experiences. Here are my top tips for improving call center quality assurance:
- Create Clear Policies and Procedures –
- Empower Employees –
- Optimize Processes And Systems –
- Measure Performance Indicators –
- Invest In Quality Assurance Programs –
With these five tips in mind, you'll be able to start making tangible improvements in your call center's quality assurance program today.
Mukesh Sharma
Mukesh Sharma is the Co-Founder & CMO of Byaj Book.
“My number one tip for improving call center quality assurance would be to…”
Prioritize regular training and coaching for call center agents. It's important to provide ongoing feedback and guidance to ensure agents are equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to handle customer interactions effectively. Additionally, leveraging technology such as speech analytics and AI can provide insights to identify areas of improvement and enhance overall performance.
Shawn Plummer
Shawn is the Founder and CEO of the financial and insurance agency, The Annuity Expert. As a licensed financial professional, Shawn sold annuities and insurance for over a decade, trained Fortune 500 advisors, and built a platform to help retirees protect their futures.
“We all perform better when we know someone important is watching, or in this case, listening…”
While you should measure interactions for overall quality scores, it’s crucial to compare performance both when your team knows you’re listening and when they don’t. If the measured
quality or client ratings differ significantly, your team is dropping the ball in their daily interactions.
Jack Underwood
Jack is the co-founder & CEO of Circuit, a delivery routing and tracking SaaS.
“Focus more on the outliers than the averages…”
While you want to keep a relatively high average quality of service, you need to examine the calls that split to either side of the spectrum to take your service standards to the next level. Your team can learn valuable lessons from the employees who went above and beyond to please as much as they do from the calls that went quite poorly or experienced too many transfers before resolution.
Alexandre Robicquet
Alexandre Robicquet is the CEO and co-founder of Crossing Minds. He holds two Master’s degrees from ENS Paris Saclay in Mathematics and Machine Learning and has since received a third in Artificial Intelligence.
“Using gamification as a form of positive reinforcement is one best practice for continued improvement…”
When agents utilize game mechanics in their performance, there is an added level of excitement propelling their performance to higher places. This enhances engagement through a new system of recognition and reward, boosting overall productivity in the process too. When employees see they can achieve organizational goals and have fun doing it, everybody wins.
Ralph Bonaduce
Ralph Bonaduce is President of Telephonic Interpretation at Akorbi BPO LLC, which provides international clients with translation, interpretation, and transcription services, as well as inbound, outbound, and back-office support in more than 170 languages.
“My top tip for improving call center quality assurance includes…”
Six brief, important steps that need to be integrated to ensure success:
- Fully understand client QA requirements and expectations.
- Provide excellent initial QA training.
- Monitor QA performance.
- Ensure that QA reporting is consistent and readily available to team members.
- Provide recurring training as needed.
- Celebrate the excellent results!
Grace He
Grace He is the People & Culture Director of TeamBuilding.
“Outside surveys improve customer service…”
My number 1 tip for improving call center quality assurance is employing an outside, independent party to conduct customer surveys. Not only does this provide another layer of feedback and transparency, but it also serves as a good motivator for managers to ensure that staff are providing quality customer service.
As an uncommon example, some companies have found success partnering with universities or non-profit organizations to recruit survey participants from their student bodies or members. This can give a fresh perspective from customers who are unfamiliar with the brand, allowing for a more holistic understanding of the customer experience.
Daniel Nyquist
Daniel Nyquist is the Chief Marketing Officer at Crosslist, an easy-to-use tool that allows sellers to list quickly on the world’s largest online marketplaces using a browser extension.
“In my experience, the best way to improve call center quality assurance is by…”
Hiring and training employees who can handle the job. Every call center has its unique challenges, but in general, it takes a certain kind of person to do this job well — someone who is confident and comfortable talking to people, but also someone who's able to stay calm under pressure and think quickly on their feet.
A lot of times when someone calls in with a problem, they're already upset or stressed out about whatever situation brought them there in the first place. So you need someone who can be empathetic without getting sucked into the drama. And you need someone who can troubleshoot problems efficiently so that your customers feel like they're getting the help they need, even if it isn't necessarily what they want (which happens more often than not).
Kamilla Hawkins
Kamilla Hawkins is the VP of Customer Success at PFLB and a woman in tech passionate about performance engineering at top-notch startups. In her free time, Kamilla enjoys exploring new places, hiking, and trying authentic new foods.
“At the very top of priorities, you have to place two crucial elements that represent different processes, but their importance is equal…”
You can't remove or downgrade any of those two in your QA program.
- Testing Related Systems:
- Measuring KPIs at Every Stage:
Basically, the top priority is to be sure that everything works and that it works correctly. Only after that can you proceed with further steps.
Donnie Rand
Donnie Rand is the Marketing Coordinator at the American Association of Owner Operators, LLC.
“For improving call center quality assurance, use real-life examples…”
Use recordings of your best calls to train your team members. It will promote a friendly environment for collaboration and learning.
They will work harder to improve their performance so that their work can be used as the best example. It helps them understand the needs and the structure of a good quality service. They won’t have any doubts while they are providing the services.
Brad Anderson
Brad Anderson is the Executive Director of FRUITION, with 20 years of winning at Digital.
“Use the multi-channel strategy…”
Did you know that the majority of consumers (66%) utilize anywhere between two and three different channels of contact with their preferred brands? Outbound call centers need to use an omnichannel support strategy if they want to get more qualified leads and higher conversion rates.
With the help of outbound call center software, you may get in touch with leads in a variety of ways, including by phone, email, chat, social media, and text message. In today's digital business world, when customers can choose from a variety of channels to interact with a company, a multipronged approach like this has a good chance of success.
Sean Stevens
Sean Stevens is the Director of Immerse Education. They empower motivated students from around the world with the knowledge and skills to succeed in their future by learning directly from experts in immersive environments.
“Make use of expert help while assessing call quality…”
The accuracy of any evaluation or monitoring of call quality is limited to the expertise of those conducting the tests. Even more importantly, the function of your QA specialist is crucial to the success of your business.
Quality assurance (QA) professionals are a lot like tightrope walkers in that they have to set acceptable quality standards, motivate your staff, and evaluate the performance and talents of each individual on your team, all while keeping your company's budget in check. You should thus search for a Quality Assurance firm that has substantial experience scoring calls and enough expertise and originality to explain all the nuances of their system to you.
Perry Zheng
Perry Zheng is the founder and CEO of Pallas, a YC-backed marketplace for all direct real estate investments. He was an engineering manager at Lyft for 5.5 years and worked as a software engineer at Twitter and Amazon.
“Improving call center quality assurance involves several strategies that can…”
Help identify areas for improvement and motivate agents to perform better. One of the most important tips is to focus on both positive and negative feedback. This means reinforcing the things agents are doing correctly, giving them a sense of pride in their work, and making your team more receptive to constructive criticism.
When giving corrective feedback, it's essential to frame it in a way that is helpful and concrete. Allowing disputes during feedback sessions can also help improve the quality of your call center. This way, agents who are most interested in getting a good score will have an opportunity to compete.
Anthony Milia
Anthony Milia is an author and award-winning digital marketer at Milia Marketing, a top-rated digital marketing agency based out of Cleveland, OH.
“One of the best tips for improving call center quality assurance is to…”
Focus on agent training and coaching. By providing agents with the necessary skills and knowledge, you can help them deliver exceptional customer service and improve the overall quality of calls.
Here are some specific tips for training and coaching call center agents:
- Develop a comprehensive training program:
- Provide ongoing coaching and feedback:
- Encourage agent self-evaluation:
- Use gamification to motivate agents:
- Foster a positive culture:
Finn Wheatley
Finn Wheatley is the Executive Consultant of Data & Technology at Xtrium. Finn started his career in the City of London working as a risk manager and investment analyst before completing a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from UCL, London.
“Training and coaching your CSRs is the most important step in improving the customer experience…”
It provides them with the skills and knowledge they need to interact effectively with customers. It also helps CSRs become more efficient and knowledgeable, reducing the likelihood of customer complaints.
Training and coaching can also help build relationships with customers, as CSRs are better equipped to provide customer service that is tailored to the customer's needs.
Stanislav Khilobochenko
Stanislav is the VP of Customer Service at Clario Cybersecurity. They offer 24/7 customer phone support, so call center quality assurance is an important pillar in their business overall.
“My top tip is to…”
Gather feedback from your call center representatives or agents on a regular basis.
While it is obvious to take customer feedback into account, management doesn't always have the full picture, and unilateral decisions can actually hinder quality assurance. By involving your people on the front lines, you can find solutions that make sense in the field.
Denise Hemke
Denise Hemke is the Chief Product Officer of Checkr.
“Empower your team to self-monitor…”
It’s crucial for center managers to provide support and monitor team performance to grow skills and improve quality, but you can see even better results by getting your employees to buy in and evaluate themselves.
Ask your team to fill out daily performance surveys in which they rate their performance and indicate any challenge areas while those customer interactions are still fresh on their mind. These should be simple surveys that take a maximum of 5 minutes to complete to avoid impeding the workday.
Your employees will feel empowered to take control of their growth while giving you enough data to discuss at your next performance meeting or step in accordingly to offer support with any problem areas.
Byron Redhead
Byron Redhead is the Director & Co-founder of FirstPage.
“Post-analyze outlier calls…”
Now and then you might get some calls that are totally off the script and very open-ended. Your reps might have had a tough time resolving what they wanted.
Doing a post-analysis of the conversation is the best way to prepare your reps for those types of situations in the future. This will ensure quality service for future customers.
Harman Singh
Harman Singh is the Director at Cyphere, a cybersecurity services company helping customers protect their most prized assets across the UK and US.
“My number 1 tip for improving call center quality assurance would be to…”
Prioritize ongoing training and education for your agents. By investing in their knowledge and skills, you can ensure they have the tools and resources they need to provide excellent customer service while also protecting sensitive information.
In addition, regularly monitoring and reviewing calls can help identify areas for improvement and provide valuable feedback for agents to continue growing and developing in their roles. Remember, a well-trained and informed team is the foundation for a successful and secure call center.
Mandy Cheung
Mandy Cheung is the CEO of Mandy Cheung Life Coach.
“Monitoring and reviewing client interactions on a regular basis is the single most effective way to ensure high quality in a contact center…”
Listening to call recordings, reading through chat logs, and going through email threads are all part of this process.
Call center managers may better serve their clients by keeping an eye on and analyzing their interactions with customers. The results may be used to determine which employees require more training and which rules and procedures should be revised.
Keeping an eye on agents' interactions with customers is another way to guarantee they're providing consistent, high-quality service. Call centers may improve their processes, provide a better experience for customers, and boost revenue by conducting quality assurance evaluations on a regular basis.
Ivana Drakulevska
Ivana Drakulevska is an SEO Account Specialist at uSERP.io.
“My number one tip for improving call center quality assurance is to…”
Invest in a colocation data center.
A colocation data center is a facility that allows companies to rent space for their servers and other IT infrastructure. By using it, call centers can benefit from the expertise of specialized technicians who maintain the servers and equipment, ensuring that they are running efficiently and are always available.
This, in turn, helps to improve call center quality assurance by reducing the risk of system downtime and improving overall call center performance.
Additionally, colocation data centers often provide backup power and redundant connectivity, ensuring that call centers can continue to operate even in the event of a power outage or other unexpected event.
Vladimir Fomenko
Vladimir Fomenko is the Director and Founder of Infatica.
“My number one piece of advice for enhancing quality assurance in a contact center is to…”
Invest heavily in the professional growth of the staff.
By providing ongoing training and development, contact center workers can learn new skills, keep up with technological advancements, and better assist customers. This has the potential to improve the quality of customer interactions, ultimately leading to excellent customer service and increased company success.
Additionally, providing employees with consistent training can ensure that they are appreciated and invested in, which could also lead to increased general work satisfaction and reduced employee turnover rates. As a result, the business can spend less time and money on hiring and orienting new employees.
At Infatica, we place a high value on our staff members' development and emphasize continuous training programs, mentoring, and performance reviews. In addition, we foster an environment conducive to open communication channels between management and staff members to guarantee that everyone feels acknowledged and encouraged.
Calvin Kim
Calvin Kim is the CEO of Coverland, which has been offering car and motorcycle covers for over 20 years.
“My number 1 tip for improving call center quality assurance is to…”
Ensure that the call center agent has the most reliable and comfortable environment when they perform their calls. This could be done by creating an energetic positive vibe in their offices, providing them with noise-canceling headphones, and ensuring quietness in their spaces.
Scott Rubzin
Scott Rubzin is the Founder of Tiffany Property Investments LLC.
“The best way to improve QA in a call center is to…”
Share analytics with your teams.
It's not enough that a manager keeps track of the quality score. These metrics and KPIs must be shared with your agents as well. It gives them a more realistic view of their performance.
This allows them to identify mistakes and flaws beyond the surface. Doing so also gives them ownership of the quality of their work. They're motivated to perform better and work on the mistakes they've identified.
Guillaume Drew
Guillaume Drew is a Shopify Expert & the Founder of Or & Zon, the #1 online retailer of natural & sustainable bedding.
“Are you looking to improve call center quality assurance at your company? If yes, then I would suggest…”
You start promoting self-monitoring. Encourage your customer representatives to monitor themselves after each shift. They can set aside a few minutes to review what went right and where they need improvement.
You can also encourage collaboration among agents by prompting them to discuss their results with each other. They can practice calls with their co-workers as well. It will allow agents to resolve problems as a group and foster teamwork.
Shannon Steinberg
Shannon Steinberg is the SEO Manager of Allied Van Lines, located in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, United States, one of the largest and oldest mover networks in the world, operating for over 85 years.
“The best tip is to…”
Invest in good software.
A good piece of software will help to maintain quality and automate the QA process. This software should monitor a number of processes for smooth flow.
The process includes call recording and call monitoring. It also helps to monitor performance reporting and help assess quality. The software programs are also capable of offering customer satisfaction surveys to collect feedback, which is vital for improving quality.
These expert tips and best practices can help you build a world-class quality assurance program that enables your company to meet its goals. However, traditional and manual quality assurance methods can’t keep up with the pace of modern business. With the increased sophistication of conversation intelligence software, automated QA is within reach for every call center.
Comprehensive conversation analytics solutions like CallMiner Eureka enable you to analyze and score 100% of every customer interaction, providing a wealth of contextual data, insights on customer sentiment, and greater visibility into the customer journey — all while supporting seamless, automated quality assurance to ensure compliance and boost performance.
Has your call center embraced automated QA? What technologies do you employ to streamline QA processes?
Frequently Asked Questions
How can quality assurance improve call center?
Quality assurance (QA) in a call center improves customer satisfaction by ensuring that the service provided meets or exceeds expectations. QA processes monitor agent performance, identify training needs, and enforce standards to ensure that each call is handled appropriately. This can lead to improved first call resolution rates, lower hold times and overall average handle times, and increased customer retention and loyalty.
What are quality assurance goals in a call center?
The primary goals of quality assurance in a call center include:
- Customer Focus: The ultimate goal is to improve customer satisfaction by meeting or exceeding their expectations in every interaction.
- Process Consistency: Implementing and adhering to standardized procedures to ensure each call is handled effectively and consistently. This can include ensuring consistency between in-house and remote team members.
- Continuous Improvement: Regularly reviewing and improving the processes, training, and technology used in the call center to continuously improve performance.
- Performance Monitoring: Regularly assessing agent performance against set metrics
- Regulatory Compliance: Ensuring that every customer interaction is in compliance with company policies, laws, and regulatory standards.
Through monitoring and feedback, the QA team works to continuously improve the customer experience and agent performance.
What are four examples of call center quality assurance activities?
Four examples of quality assurance activities in a call center include:
- Call Monitoring: Listening to live or recorded calls to assess agent performance and customer satisfaction. This may be done by a person or software such as conversation analytics solutions.
- Performance Reviews: Conducting regular reviews of agent performance against set metrics and providing constructive feedback.
- Training and Coaching: Providing ongoing training and coaching to agents to improve their skills and ensure they meet quality standards.
- Process Audits: Regularly reviewing and improving call center processes to ensure efficiency and effectiveness.
