Monitoring for quality – it seems as though this concept should be firmly in place for any contact center. Callers are told their calls may be monitored for quality before they ever connect with a live agent. Is quality monitoring actually taking place so the organization can reap the benefits, or are they simply trying to achieve compliance?

A recent KnoahSoft (News - Alert) white paper, Critical Processes and Solutions to Maximize Contact Center Performance and Quality, explored the importance of quality monitoring. Not only does this practice keep every agent performing at expected levels, it also provides an excellent opportunity to gather useful data. To accomplish this, contact center managers should implement a process that collects, assesses, analyzes and acts on information gathered through quality monitoring.

The collection process is important in quality monitoring as it enables the contact center to pull together all relevant data to form the basis for evaluating agent performance. This process includes surveying, call recording, customer relationship management (CRM) data and ACD stats, among others. 

At the assessment level, the raw transaction information, such as support transcripts or recorded calls, is processed using human or automated means. Human processes can include Q&A evaluations, while automated approaches may include speech analytics, NLP and others. The result of the assessment stage can produce a more refined set of data that is combined with other collected information for comprehensive analysis.

Next, quality monitoring has to include a stage of analysis. In this step, all raw and refined information collected in the collect and assess steps is used to provide operationally relevant information to the contact center. At that point, all information can go through a strategic analysis using ad hoc reports, balanced scorecards, canned reports, and OLAP analysis. Real-time custom dashboard alerts and mobile messaging can be used to provide tactical analysis through this stage in the quality monitoring process.

Finally, quality monitoring is only effective if contact center management acts on the information captured. In other words, they must take the analysis in step three to provide the targeted training and coaching that agents and supervisors need to improve performance. It is also used to schedule follow-up and tracking, ensuring all goals are established and met in a timely fashion.

At that point, the quality monitoring process will feed back into itself, supporting a continuous improvement model that has become a hallmark of an award winning contact center. Best in class organizations have learned that quality monitoring is more than just recording calls – it’s taking the intelligent information gathered and making it work toward creating a first class environment.