Call center operations are hectic and need optimum efficiency at all levels to run them seamlessly around the year 24/7. Many elements must be coordinated, and people must work together to ensure the call centers perform well. One of the most critical components of a call center is the agents responsible for providing customer service, and they are responsible for performing sets of activities following the service delivery and QA standards. Completing all these activities ensures agents stay compliant and deliver excellent customer service at each call or contact with customers.
A call center checklist includes these activities, which are essential to function efficiently, satisfying the rules and policies and the customers. Quality analysts are responsible for reviewing that agents are following the right practices, and QA software or quality management systems can assist these QA teams in this endeavor. But let us first understand what a call center quality assurance checklist is and the essential elements that must be included in it.
What is the call center quality assurance checklist?
Call center quality assurance checklists are a collection of activities agents must perform to comply with the QA standards. QA analysts or teams use these standards to evaluate the agents and their performance on the call. Also, a QA checklist outlines the best practices that agents must follow during customer interactions.
The QA team can use it to measure how well the agents follow these standards, guidelines, policies, and practices and instances where they deviate from them. It also provides the correct framework to measure how well agents remember and apply their knowledge to the calls. So, QA software or call center quality assurance software includes QA checklists for checking agent performance.
The operations must perform regular sessions for walking through the calls and ideal ways to conduct the call to make agents remember training. If there are any changes, it must be informed instantly to the agents. Quality assurance checklists ensure that the call center standards and services expectations from the agents are established and that agents are integrating those elements into their daily operations and customer services.
There are two different types of call center quality assurance checklists. These two different definitions serve two different roles.
Preventive
A call center quality assurance checklist accompanies the agents during the call and functions as a resource or job aid. These include call flows, call center scripts, policies, standard operating procedures, reference sheets, etc.
Post call assessment
It is the QA checklist that is right now discussed in this article. This checklist is utilized for evaluating agents’ performances after the call. In most cases, the QA scorecard contains the elements of the QA checklist and is incorporated into the QA software or quality management software.
Seven components to include on your QA checklist.
Your contact center quality assurance checklist is designed to assess the performance of your agents from the moment the call starts until the post-call duties. When an agent answers a call, there are several things they need to say and do.
The following seven essential components should be on your call center quality assurance checklist. Additionally, we’ve added specific questions to assist your QA team in evaluating agents and scoring each component.
1 Appropriate greeting
The contact center greetings are critical in assisting your call center representative in taking control of a call. Taking charge of the call implies that the agent leads the call to follow the protocols and obtain a faster resolution.
A decent greeting requires the contact center representative to identify themselves and the organization clearly at the beginning of the call.
Questions for evaluation
- Did they respond to the call in an “X” number of seconds?
- Did they offer an introduction?
- Did they introduce the company?
- Did they take control of the call and start to follow the call flow?
Add these evaluation questions into QA forms in QA software to review if the agent is following the right procedure.
- Verifying the caller
Each contact center has unique information that must be validated before proceeding with a phone transaction or sharing private account information. It is especially critical in areas that deal with compliance and privacy, such as HIPAA in healthcare or PCI in finance.
You may need the following information for verification:
- Full name of the caller
- The account number
- Contact Information
Evaluation Questions
- Did they adhere to the verification process?
- Did they confirm that the caller is authorized to use the account?
Maintaining compliance is critical, and QA software must constantly monitor and review if agents follow the correct procedures and rules.
- Recognized the customer’s requirements
Understanding the customer’s needs entails more than simply determining what the caller requires assistance with. It is also paying attention to the caller’s tone and speech. It also involves listening with empathy and expressing that empathy while interacting with the customers.
Active listening involves your agent communicating all the essential details with the caller and ensuring that customers feel heard and understood. It is sometimes accomplished by rephrasing what the caller stated back to them on the call. Finally, your employee may handle the call by communicating effectively with the customer.
Questions for evaluation
- Did the agent provide the best solution to the customer’s needs?
- Did they engage in active listening?
- Was the agent successful in communicating with the caller?
- Did they establish clear expectations and timetables?
- Did they route the call to the proper department (if necessary)?
Adding and reviewing these questions through QA software will help understand the levels of engagement agents offer through the calls.
- Investigated and resolved the call
Every call center strives to provide first-call resolution to its customers. They do not want the customers to contact the company again to fix their problems. Therefore, every agent aims to deliver a satisfactory solution to the caller. For certain instances, your call center operators must follow precise protocols, or they may need to improvise. The training and experience will enable them to understand where to stick to the process or deviate.
You should have standard operating procedures documented, whether they are step-by-step processes, call flows, or call center scripts. That way, your agents can refer to it while they troubleshoot the caller’s problem. QA software should verify if the agents have followed the SOP, but if they deviate from it, the QA professional must investigate the reason and see the outcomes before scoring them.
Questions for evaluation
- Did they use the proper troubleshooting procedure?
- Did they provide the consumer with accurate explanations?
- Did they get the call resolved?
- Adherence to optimal customer service practices
Being a contact center representative necessitates both soft and hard abilities. Soft skills are behavioral abilities that enable sales representatives to communicate more effectively with callers. Hard skills refer to the knowledge that an agent must have to assist a caller (for example, understanding how to utilize your systems and following your specified protocols). Call center agents’ best practices include soft and hard skills, which should be enhanced through training. QA software can help discover if agents lack these skills, and agents can be coached based on the results to improve those skills.
Questions for evaluation
- Did the agent listen actively?
- Did they speak slowly, and audibly on the call?
- Did the agent show empathy?
- Did they demonstrate a willingness to assist?
- Did the agent take the call to maximize call handling time without hurrying the caller?
- Did they comply with the regulations?
- The call was properly closed.
When your call center representative has resolved the initial purpose of the call, the tendency may be to say, “Have a good day,” and then hang up. Check whether the agent followed the correct call closure protocol by auditing the calls through QA software or a quality management system.
Questions for evaluation
- Did the agent provide a summary of the conversation and any measures taken?
- Did they go through the following steps? (whether applicable) Did the representative inquire whether the caller had any other questions?
- Did they express gratitude to the consumer for calling?
- Did they initially wait for the caller to hang up?
- Did they ask the caller to complete a post-call survey? (As required)
- Finished the post-call tasks
Your representative will be taking notes throughout the call. Every encounter must be documented. It is, however, impossible to take notes, search for information in your system, and converse with a caller simultaneously. Typically, agents must complete their notes after they have hung up the phone in the call management systems.
Questions for evaluation
- Was the agent taking notes?
- Did they keep track of the actions performed on the account?
Conclusion
Build a call center QA checklist and implement it through QA software of quality management systems. Include the applicable evaluation questions in the QA form or scorecard to assess if the checklist is followed and measure agent performance better.
