Call Center Intelligence

Call centers are in the customer service business. Everyday, call center employees provide customers of the client's company with their first, or perhaps last, impression of their company. If your call center is doing a quality job, you certainly won't damage the image of your client, and you may even enhance it. If your call center isn't performing up to standard, you will certainly alienate customers. Your call center quality assurance program needs to be fully integrated into every aspect of your call center to ensure success. We refer to this as call center intelligence. Many centers do some monitoring, a little training and some reporting. As long as there are no major customer complaints, they feel comfortable with the services they provide. However, providing quality service is an ongoing initiative that can make your center stand out from the crowd. How can you make quality assurance a way of life at your call center? First, integrate quality into every aspect of recruiting and training call agents. Hiring individuals with a "knack" for providing customer service can be tricky, but design screening tools based on the attributes of your best performing current employees. What skill set do they have, and how do they approach their jobs? This information can be used as a basis for an interview process that can screen for agents with good potential. New agents should be trained in quality customer service from their first day. An intensive orientation and training period that allows the new agents to learn and practice good customer service skills can result in agents who not only understand what is expected of them, but also possess the skills to accomplish their objectives. I once worked at a call center that required two weeks of intensive training, including role playing and several simulated "live call" experiences, before we were allowed on the floor. After this training, we were confident in our abilities to serve the callers, had practiced taking calls and were well aware of the company's resources if we couldn't answer a request. A "refresher" course was mandatory every six months as well. Of course, this company won many awards for customer service. If supervisors and managers can't be recruited from the call associates, they should undergo the same call agent training. A manager who understands the unique difficulties of the call center associate's position is ideal. Managers should also spend time learning the quality assurance representatives' position as well. This ensures that the supervisor is not only echoing the same quality expectations as the QA department, but that they can provide interim training and counseling for the call center associates. Many call centers review production reports daily or even weekly. These reports are very useful, but don't address the problems as they are happening. Call facilities that employ "real time" reporting programs can identify problems much more quickly, and avoid even one day of customer dissatisfaction. Agent's statistics can be viewed continuously, and those that fall outside of the norm can be addressed quickly. Taking too little time on calls is often just as worrisome as taking too much. It also allows quick identification of good performers and quicker recognition and duplication of their efforts. Of course, call monitoring is an important part of any quality assurance program. Adding a program to your system that allows shadow monitoring (or the ability to see what the agent is typing while they're talking) can identify problems with software and database usage. Ensuring that your call center is providing the highest quality service shouldn't just be a job for the QA team. Integrate quality assurance throughout your processes and watch your quality, and satisfaction, skyrocket.