Call Quality Monitoring: How to Maintain and Improve the Quality of Your Calls

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With other methods of customer service becoming more prevalent, such as email and texting, it’s more important than ever to make sure your customer service calls are of the best quality.

Calls have an opportunity to be ultimately more personal and catered to the customer than a text or email can. The tone of voice and delivery are two key components that phone calls can portray better than any other communication. Call quality best practices include several ways to monitor and improve upon call quality, from scripting to analyzing crucial feedback data.   

Utilize Call Recording Tools

Many call centers and customer service departments will record calls to analyze them and use what they hear to improve future interactions. Recording calls have many benefits beyond just using the information to improve on future calls. Call recording can help track call metrics, duration of the call, customer retention, and even create some friendly competition amongst the team by posting live call metrics. 

Some common call recording tools used by call centers include Talkdesk, Calabrio, Oreka, and Aircall. These cloud-based systems assist in call monitoring, gathering call metadata, and other business strategies for call centers, big or small. If your company doesn’t already utilize a call recording system, implementing one can be the best thing for you, and it can do half the work for you!

Analyze Your Customer Feedback

Reviews, emails, and other forms of customer feedback are right from the source and should be utilized to the fullest to fully cater to the right audiences. If customers are sharing a similar bad experience, chances are even more people who do not voice their opinion are dealing with the same thing. You want to improve on that and help resolve common issues before they happen to others. 

To receive even more relevant feedback, encourage your agents to kindly ask for reviews and feedback directly after a call. This way, it can be fresh in the customer’s mind, and they can leave the most accurate feedback. Or, provide them with the link and a way to give feedback in their own time. 

Track the Right Metrics and KPIs

Only track the right metrics that benefit your business and add value to your time and money. There’s no need to track unnecessary data if it won’t be useful in determining call quality. If you’re strictly looking to maintain or improve the quality of your calls, there are a few metrics you can set aside for now, as they may not be as beneficial to analyzing call quality. 

These metrics include cost per call or agent turnover. Cost per call may only be necessary for more sales-oriented call centers. Cost per call measures just that, how much it costs per call. This includes the agent salary and the time spent on the phone call. This is a useful business metric to determine profitability, but for call quality, it may not be as important. 

Agent turnover measures how many agents leave their roles, and the company has to hire someone new. Hiring and training new employees is time and cost-intensive. And although it could affect call quality due to having to train new employees, it may not have a direct link to present call quality and how to improve it. 

Lock in Best Practices to Maintain Consistency

Make sure your team implements best practices across the board, so there is consistency maintained no matter what. Many of these items we are listing are call quality best practices and should be implemented within your workflow, plus any others you find would suit your business. 

Consistency is key in being able to maintain and especially improve the quality of your calls. By being consistent, you can get the entire team on the same level and experiencing the same things—and then you can all make the same adjustments as a unit. There are obviously going to be varying degrees of talent because people are different and bring their own unique skills. But, having consistency in the practices can help lift up those struggling and create cohesion in the team. Customers should be able to have a great experience no matter who answers their call because your staff has trained against the same techniques and practices. 

Script Out Your Calls

Some people may find this silly, or be reluctant to follow a script, but it can do wonders in terms of boosting customer satisfaction. If every call center employee can follow the same guidelines, and the same script, it can be much easier to remain consistent in all possible situations. 

A script doesn’t have to be as detailed as writing out every single line. That can put more pressure on the agent when they think they need to read or memorize every line. They may end up feeling and sounding robotic, which may make them feel like they’re a recording that takes away from the humanized connection they can make with a customer. 

A handy outline, however, can do wonders when it comes to responding on the fly with a customer. You can build it out as sort of a choose-your-own-adventure style. If they say this, then you say that, for example. A few simple phrases written out can help alleviate the stress an agent may feel when dealing with a customer, especially if they are unhappy and begin to get upset. Responding poorly can only make the conversation awkward if it gets derailed because emotions get the best of them. 

Continuing Education for Employees

Times change, people change, and their expectations of customer service change. More technology brings more criticism and a keener eye (or ear in this case) on the level of service they receive from call centers and customer service agents. 

Employees may be more engaged if they are offered opportunities to continue their education because it shows the company cares about their wellbeing and their future with or without the company. Everyone wants to learn more and get better at what they do. Supplying your team with the right tools can make all the difference in their mood, behavior, and how they interact with customers. 

If you want to boost profitability, employee morale, and customer satisfaction, think about looking at your call quality. If you implement some of these best practices within your call center, you may be surprised to find how much you can improve upon your existing processes for the better. If you are looking for more information on how a call center focuses on call quality monitoring, give Customer Traac a call at 763-553-2989.