By A.J. Windle is the Director of Client Engagement
People ask me all the time. How many evaluations should be done for an effective call monitoring program in our call center? The mindset is the more evaluations the better. While conceptually that makes sense, listening to more calls doesn’t make your representatives great. In my opinion, it is the quality of the call evaluation, who delivers the feedback to the agent and how the feedback is delivered which impacts behavioral habits.
Using call monitoring to improve performance requires that you hire the right coach
Call monitoring is a tedious job. Quality Assurance (QA) Analysts are required to listen to various calls, from various agents, at various levels of knowledge and learning. After listening, the QA’s responsibility is to identify the gaps in knowledge or skill and work with that agent to improve. Sounds a lot like a coach, doesn’t it?
We’ve all seen it before. A college team that is struggling to win changes the coach and in a matter of 1 or 2 years is crushing the competition. That said, the “Coach” conducting call coaching sessions matters.
Using the right call monitoring form as your playbook will ensure everyone knows what is expected
I think of call monitoring forms can be compared to a football team’s playbook. Everyone has one. However, a well-executing team has refined, studied, and customized their playbook to their team, and it allows them to win.
Not only is it important to have the right “Coach” in place, an effective Call Monitoring Program will have the right quality monitoring form in place also. The form must be:
- Simple to use
- Easy to understand
- Clear in expectations
- Scored
Call monitoring results are more important than the quantity of assessments
Imagine for a second you had a manager doing QA on your QA. What would they focus on? Would it be that John listened to 200 calls today or that John listened to calls with a purpose and properly identified gaps for the representatives he listened to, coached those agents in a way that gained their buy-in/understanding and built a personal relationship with the representative that will no doubt keep you all winning? Well, I know you would choose the latter.
Listen, I agree that there must be minimum standards for the number of calls that a QA Analyst should monitor on a weekly basis and a minimum number of agents that should be monitored as well. For a clear-cut guideline, I think two calls monitored per agent every week is a good metric to use. But don’t set a mandate for the quantity of calls to be monitored at the expense of the quality of the coaching.
First, you need to get the right coach, then you create the right “Playbook”, then you set a minimum expectation of call monitoring’s completed as long as it doesn’t negatively impact the value that “Coach” and “Playbook” bring to the table.
At QCS we have developed countless successful call monitoring programs and playbooks so if you’re looking to level-up your quality assurance program, give us a call at 1-866-963-2889 and press 1 for sales. Or email me at aj.windle@qualitycontactsolutions.com. We’d love to help!
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A.J. Windle is the Director of Client Engagement at Quality Contact Solutions. A.J. is responsible for ensuring innovation and key initiatives are accomplished for each QCS client on an ongoing basis. A.J.’s deep background in call center management, including training, operations management, and his recent role as Director of Operations for QCS, is skillfully leveraged to produce better results for each client’s outsourced call center budget dollar. A.J. is a hands-on leader and he loves to win! A.J can be reached at aj.windle@qualitycontactsolutions.com or 516-656-5106.
