Building a GREAT call quality program

For every Call Centre, there's usually a quality program of some kind in place to ensure employees deliver acceptable and often great customer experiences. While these programs have evolved to cover all channels such as chat, e-mail and social media, we will focus on building a program for the traditional phone call.

STEP 1

• Gather input from both leaders and employees - most assume that leaders should design the program but that is a big mistake. If you want your employes to buy into a call quality program for the right reasons, have them help create it. They know more than anyone how to best take care of your customers and the important points to cover in any conversation.
  

STEP 2

• Consider no more than 10 evaluation points that you'd like to measure. This is typically the most difficult part of creating any effective call quality program, especially if you are measuring service and sales quality. It is easy to consider more than 10 evaluation points, but doing so will only make the end to end evaluation process more complicated and ultimately more difficult.
  

STEP 3

• When deciding on 10 evaluation points, stick to those that really matter. Measuring how well an employee listened and empathized with a customer, is far more important that if he/she used a scripted greeting to say hello/goodbye and/or used the customer's name throughout the call. Other key themes to measure include, appropriate display of product knowledge, keeping the customer engaged and avoid placing on hold, confirming the conversation outcome and in a sales environment trying to sell. There is no science on what to measure, just good judgement. 

STEP 4

• Create a document that is easy to use. Consider either word or excel. The advantage of excel is that you can have it become an evaluation and scorecard all in one. Of course if you have the right technology program you can often create and use a form directly within. Also, it's a good idea to create room for both employee and Q/A Monitor or Team Leader to sign so there is a record of these discussions. Primarily, it validates that the employee is receiving support. 

STEP 5

• Lastly, decide on how how to implement and continually use the form. Be mindful of how quality programs are often perceived by employees (e.g. as a big brother tool). Ensure you have employees help promote the program and how it will be used (e.g. to help them provide the best possible customer experience). It also offers protection for the organization that mandatory items are covered with customers, such as disclosures or product returns policy information. 

Also, keep in mind the following:

• Frequency of evaluations - daily, weekly, monthly?
  
• Side by side vs. remote call listening (the benefits of both)
  
• Who does the call listening? Team Leaders, Q/A Monitors? A Q/A team is a great idea.
  
• Facilitate peer to peer listening sessions for employees
  
• Define your evaluation points as yes or now answers as often as possible  

A simple, well thought out and supported call quality program is integral to providing an exceptional customer experience. Organizations that get this right will absolutely have a competitive advantage.

To learn about our services click here What We Can Do. To talk about creating or improving your call quality program call 647-202-7385 or email eli@simplifyingservice.com.

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