A typical call center attends thousands of calls every single day.
From the company’s perspective, each of these calls represent a business opportunity – either to bring in new business, keep existing accounts, expand domains or introduce something new in their customer base.
The cornerstone of success with regards to attending these calls is maintaining a high level of quality in customer service.
Offering quality service is paramount to customer satisfaction.
To ensure consistency in quality, companies set up quality assurance analysis teams to monitor, regulate and suggest strategic change in the operations of the call center to harness better productivity and provide better service.
In this article, we will talk about the roles and responsibility of a quality assurance analyst, how it pertains to the working of agents and benefits the call center, what factors it encompasses and how best to carry out the job.
We will also look at an example which demonstrates the impact of quality assurance analyst having in the BPO setup.
1. Developing evaluation programs. A majority of quality assurance analysts have worked as call center agents themselves in the past.
Therefore, they have firsthand knowledge of the situation and know what it takes to provide the best performance.
With this knowledge, they design evaluation programs that analyze the critical performance behaviors of employees and monitor the metrics defined for success.
Such evaluation programs measure the impact on the company, and serve the excellent output of each individual call center agent.
It investigates the root cause of problems that have occurred and provide actionable insights that can be implemented as viable solutions in a bid for continuous improvement.
2. Monitoring changing trends. A quality assurance team not only focuses on the working of the company internally, but also has to keep an eye out to see what its competitors are up to, and what is the market.
It is their responsibility to keep a track of industry trends which can impact their products and services.
Given that the world today is changing so fast, industry trends keep changing as well, and prompt response from the companies is necessary to stay relevant in this fast-paced, dynamic market.
Quality assurance analysts track their internal progress with reference to industry standards to gauge where they fall in terms of productivity and customer satisfaction.
3. Call quality monitoring. This is the primary job of a quality assurance analyst in a BPO.
Through call monitoring, the analyst is able to discern the tactics employed by an agent, the response of the customer to those tactics, the flow of conversation, the mindset of the customer and the approaches taken to fit that mindset, effectiveness of solutions presented, agent performance in terms of convincing the customer to buy or providing answers to their queries, the perception of a product or service by each individual customer, etc.
All of this is valuable data in enhancing the strategies adopted by the company to market its products and provide better support.
Possible improvements are identified, loopholes are fixed and the entire operation tends towards a more effective goal.
4. Optimal use of technology. Accurate data reports are essential to gauge true performance and subsequently improve functions for the company.
However, the emergence of such data reports requires innovative technology that can analyze data effectively and project meaningful information from it.
Quality assurance also involves directing the software backing that the company requires, since it is critical for a call center to use the right technology to maximize their performance.
The quality assurance team needs to survey exact requirements, find the best fit solutions and implement that technology to ensure the smooth functioning.
5. Introducing training programs. QA analysts, through call monitoring and metric evaluation, are able to identify the areas where agents require strengthening.
They then recommend training modules that should be introduced for the agents to familiarize themselves with these concepts.
Moreover, the quality assurance team also schedules training on emerging technology to ensure that your agents can stay one step ahead of their competitors.
There are also decisions regarding training as a group and as an individual, which are taken by QA analysts with the development of the agents in mind.
Thus, QA analysts have a role to play in the future of the organization as well by coaching and training the agents to attend subsequent calls in the superior way.
6. Business risk assessment. Modern businesses have to go through the process of identifying possible risks, ensuring they have defenses to mitigate damage in case those risks occur, and formulate action plans to negate the possibility of such risks as far as possible.
Quality assurance analysts study the likelihood of risks both internally and externally.
External risks include changes in economic trends, governmental regulations, change in customer demands, competitor success, etc, while internal risks include lack of infrastructure, outdated technology, low employee performance, etc.
It is the responsibility of QA analysts to identify standby solutions in case unforeseen events occur, and build modules that strengthen the defense of the company against such risks.
7. Reduction of employee attrition. Quality assurance analysts also deal with the metrics of employee satisfaction.
They have to ensure that employees are happy with their job processes, not only because they are less productive when they are not happy with their job, but also because employee attrition is a huge cost to bear for the company in terms of both time and money.
The reduction of employee attrition is a goal for every organization, because a lot of resources go into training and preparing an agent to perform to their full potential, and constantly having to replace agent’s takes a toll on productivity of the company.
8. Up-gradations of business processes. In modern markets, business processes are being revamped very quickly .
With such rapid change coming in from all the quarters, businesses need a dedicated team of professionals to anticipate requirements and suggest relevant up-gradations.
This is where the quality assurance team comes in.
Armed with the right software, quality assurance analysts study the business processes that is currently going on; to understand what is likely required change in the near future.
This keeps company moving forward, pushes innovation and ensures that companies are able to serve their customers even better with each passing upgrade.
9. Expectation management. Quality assurance analysts act as an interface between the management and the call center employees.
Expectation management is a proactive step to ensure that managers, employees and customers are all on the same page with reference to any given situation, so that there is far less chance of any one party being antagonized by the outcome if things go according to plan.
The QA analysts ensure transparency between the rounds, facilitate communication, and ensure all parties are aware of the risks involved and the possibility of outcomes, etc so that expectations are set more effectively and more realistically.
10. Drawing feedback and checking quality of maintenance. The quality assurance team needs feedback from clients to understand their perspective.
As such, it can formulate reports about employee performance only after taking into account how customers felt about the service they were provided.
Therefore, drawing feedback is a part of the responsibilities of the QA analysts. In addition, they monitor the quality of maintenance provided after a sale has been completed.
This effectively raises the bar for continued support and helps the company keep its customers loyal to the brand.
Analysts determine how agents should stay in touch with repeat customers and deliver them benefits.
The Case Study
Quality control and quality assessment are vital to the sustained success of a company.
This is even more important in the context of providing call center solutions, because human interactions stand at the forefront of such operations and their impact can only be measured through extensive analysis.
In addition, quality assessment analysts determine the best plan of action that a company should take by combining the factors of call center software and using their experience of the market to preempt risks that might occur and the most effective solutions to them.
To understand the impact that quality assessment analysts can have in the call center’s operations, let us take an example of Bizrec Solutions, a call center providing telemarketing software solutions for an established organization.
In this case study, we will take a look at the situation that the company was in, what its main challenges were and how the company worked out solutions to overcome those challenges.
We will also take a look at the results of such solutions, and determine whether they were able to implement strategies that benefited their cause.
The Problem Scenario
Bizrec Solutions had been in business for a long time, and had always seen a steady growth in user base and sales as well as revenue generation.
Over the last two years, however, customer demands were rapidly changing; employees were unable to cope up with a high volume of queries and were thus failing to meet targets, making them unhappy at their job.
The quality of service provided was declining, and the company was looking to bring in reinforcements to help stabilize their sales and revamp their operations to provide better service.
The Challenges
The problems that the company faced are listed below.
1. A lot of the strategies being developed for future plans were off the cuff, and hence did not always take into account the real market scenario. This caused a lot of results to be sub-par and the company took a hit.
2. The technology being used was not able to analyze performance and suggest reinforcements. Agents did not have the technical feedback they needed to better their own performance.
3. Agents were largely untrained in innovative and new technology, which left the door open for competitors to take centre stage. The most effective solutions could not be provided to clients, causing further damage to their abilities.
4. Owing to the lack of right tools to work with and the inability to meet unrealistic targets, a lot of employees were looking to leave. Employee attrition rates were very high, causing huge drainage to the resources of the company.
The Solutions
The managers at the company identified that they needed to address these issues immediately to continue prospering. They came up with the following solutions to deal with the problems they were facing.
1. A dedicated team of quality assurance analysts were brought on board to assist with the decision-making, expectation management, employee satisfaction and risk assessment, among the other things.
2. The company decided to invest in the best call center software available, so that employees could take data-driven decisions during the conversations, and also take the help of technology in devising their strategies to push sales through.
3. Training modules were introduced to familiarize agents with the latest developments in technology and get them used to the new solutions so that they could serve customers even more effectively.
4. Calls were monitored by the quality assessment analysts, and changes were suggested taking into account the impact they had on the customers’ mindset. This helped agents deliver more value in conversations and generate better connections with the clients.
The Result
The results of this move were overwhelmingly positive.
As soon as QA analysts were included in the decision making process, the changes began to show.
Customer attrition rates were the lowest over the next year, with sales increasing at the highest rate in a decade.
On the top of that, employee attrition was down significantly as well, since the agents had proper tech to work with and had a clear plan of action laid out for them.
Thus, we see how the introduction of quality assessment analysts can change the face of a business for the better.
In today’s digital world, the correct call center software solutions coupled with experts in implementing them is the formula for success.
Having a dedicated personnel to carry out the roles and responsibilities outlined in this article will definitely help your business grow and keep you moving forward ahead of your competitors.