QC Evaluation Form Recalibration

Hi Ann,

In my humble opinion, there is no "right answer" to this question. Some people use a very binary "pass/fail" option, while others will have a sliding scale from zero to 10 for example, along 8 to 10 key criteria of a call, which would be established based on the role the agent has within the business. The complexity of the procees you want to adopt will depend on the bandwidth of your staff, and the level of detail you want to acquire.

Your point about "exceptional" calls is a good one, and sounds like a good incentive to ensure agents are always trying to go above and beyond the call of duty within your centre. I would structure it as a bit of "extra credit", so you dont lose points for not doing it. It could also be discretionary, owing to the fact that not every call is the same and sometimes, that little oppotunity exists to absolutely delight the customer.

Regarding reviewing the evaluation process altogether, without knowing your business, I would assume that it probably should be examined annually, unless there are some unexpected events, such as a dramatic change to the centre iteself, or perhaps your agents are scoring too high across your criteria. That would mean either expanding the criteria, or applying more challenging measures. There is a trend to only focus on the things they are being measured on. So I sometimes recommend to clients to establish alot more criteria than they are actually measured on, and randomly select say, 10 criteria per call per agent, constantly mixing it up. It might mean a little more administrative work, but helps with keeping agents on their toes...

There are alot of other ways to try to develop a continuous improvement process. Let me know if this has helped, or if you have any further questions.

Good luck!

Gene

Hi,

I have recently reviewed our CQ definitions after a very long and drawn out battle to do so. Following my experience i would suggest the following:

A clear difinitive set of guidelines which out lines to the advisors what is expected of them (What is expected, Why you require it to be done, When in the call it is to be done and How/examples) This will also highlight any broken processes you have and give you the opportunity to provide clarity to advisors for these areas.

A clear yes / no evaluation form works best. In my opinion sliding scales and fully/partially/not at all type evaluations become subjective and it is very hard to monitor consistency between those evaluating calls, and subsequently difficult for resolving any disputes as the evaluation is based on opinion rather than fact (Yes they did meet the criteria or no they didn't is clear cut)

Documents should be reviewed at least anually, unless there is a major change within the call centre.

Our evaluation form is weighted as section based - 6 sections each weighted in order of importance. The score for each section is reflective of the challenges we face within the contact centre (currently our soft skills section is wieghted at 40%) Each question within each category is then awarded a %

You may want to consider whether certain questions make the whole form an auto fail (0%) we implement this for failure to comply with DPA.
Failure to adhere to other particular questions mean that they fail that particular section (for example providing the wrong solution means that whole section is failed which deducts 10% from the whole form)

We do have a bonus question which relates to a long term initiative our client is running, if the advisor promotes this within their call they can gain an extra percentage. We have done this as a bonus question as we identified that there is not always the opportunity to promote this on every call, and we did not want this to negatively impact AHT if we made it a compulsory element of the definitions.

The question criteria was developed by a range of managers across our business to ensure that each area was fairly represented. The definitions then written by the quality manager and then tested by the quality team on calls they were already evaluating using the old criteria. This allowed us to identify any flaws and be confident that the new criteria accurately reflected the call they were evaluated, it also allowed us to compare results using old and new criteria.

Finally before gaining agreement from snr managers we brought some of our top performers to review the definitions. This allowed us to gain their buy in and positively promote this amongst staff.

One thing i was very keen to change was that advisors started at 0% and gained points when meeting the criteria, rather than starting at 100% and having points deducted, which is how our old evlauations were set up. Deducting points led the quality team to be viewed quite negatively by the main operation (managers included!) and it was often the case that thy had to fight to prove advisors didn't meet the criteria. With our new definitions advisors have to demostrate that they did meet the criteria in order to gain points and the onus is on them. Now that they are being rewarded with points as opposed to having them taken away, we are starting to see a shift in the negative view that was taken of the quality team and there has been a reduction in disputes received.

Hope this helps!