Many contact centres have expanded into email, chat, messaging, social media, and AI-powered channels, but quality assurance has not always evolved at the same pace.
For many, voice still receives the majority of QA attention, while digital channels and chatbots receive far less scrutiny, creating inconsistent standards, hidden risks, and an incomplete view of customer experience.
To find out more, we asked Chris Mounce, Product Training & Enablement Specialist at evaluagent, about how contact centres can create a truly omnichannel QA programme.
Video: QA Across Channels: How to Close the QA Gap Across Every Channel
Watch the video below to hear Chris explore how contact centres can manage QA well across different channels, focusing on how contact centres can close the QA gap across channels:
With thanks to Chris Mounce, Product Training & Enablement Specialist, evaluagent, for contributing to this video.
This video was originally published in our article ‘How to Manage QA Across Different Channels’
3 Priorities for a Successful Omnichannel QA Programme
A modern QA programme should apply consistent standards across every customer interaction, whether it is handled by a voice agent, a digital advisor, or an AI-powered chatbot.
“Look at how most contact centres run quality assurance and you might notice something. Sometimes it’s just a telephone QA programme with other channels bolted on.
Voice gets the scorecards, the evaluators, the calibration sessions, but email, chat, and social, sometimes they’re lucky to get a spot check.
The channels growing fastest ultimately end up with the least scrutiny, with some getting none at all.”
To get you started, here are three priorities that matter most:
1. Build One QA Philosophy Across Every Channel
A common mistake is treating each channel as a separate QA programme. For example, voice may be measured on empathy and call handling, email on grammar, and chat on response speed.
The result is fragmented reporting that makes it difficult to compare performance across channels.
“The first one is having one quality philosophy, rather than a separate scorecard for every channel. Because when voice is being judged on empathy, email on grammar, and chat on speed, no one can see the whole picture. So what works better is a shared core accuracy, resolution, compliance and tone, and apply that everywhere with the channel-specific things layered on top.
So, email adds response time and completeness, because every follow-up question ultimately costs the customer another day of waiting. Chat adds written clarity. Voice leans more on the soft skills.
And calibrate your evaluators across channels – voice, email, and chat in the same session. So, a score means the same thing wherever it comes from.”
A better approach is to create a shared quality framework built around core measures such as:
- Accuracy
- Resolution
- Compliance
- Tone
- Customer outcome
Channel-specific measures can then be layered on top. For example email may place greater emphasis on response time and completeness, chat may focus on written clarity, and voice may prioritize soft skills and empathy.
Calibration should also become omnichannel, as when evaluators review voice, email, and chat interactions together, scoring becomes more consistent and meaningful across the entire contact centre.
2. Close the QA Coverage Gap
Most contact centres manually review only a small sample of interactions each month, which often represents a tiny fraction of total customer contacts, while high-volume digital channels may receive little or no quality review at all.
The first step is to map QA coverage across every channel. Compare interaction volumes with the proportion of contacts that are actually reviewed, and any channel carrying significant customer volume with minimal QA represents a major operational risk.
“The second thing is closing the coverage gap. Now, most contact centres are manually reviewing a handful of interactions per agent per month. And that’s a fraction of 1% of the work.
So, map it out. Every channel, its volume, and how much QA it’s actually getting. Anything carrying real volume with no review, that’s your biggest risk. And honestly, it’s your fastest win.
And this is where AI changes the maths. Automated first-pass evaluation can cover every interaction on every channel, leaving your human reviewers for the valuable work – coaching and the complex, high-risk conversations where judgement really matters.”
AI-powered first-pass evaluation can dramatically increase coverage by assessing every interaction across voice and digital channels, allowing human reviewers to focus on:
- Coaching opportunities
- Complex customer situations
- Compliance concerns
- High-risk conversations that require judgement and context
This shifts quality assurance from random sampling to targeted improvement.
3. Start Auditing Your Chatbot
One of the least audited channels in many contact centres is the chatbot, as Chris explained:
“The third thing is the channel that almost nobody is auditing – it’s your chatbot. Now, most contact centres can tell you their containment rate, but very few can actually tell you whether the bot’s answers were factually correct.
Containment tells you that a conversation has ended, not that it ended well. So, treat the bot like a member of the team. Grade its answers against your knowledge base, fact accuracy and repeat contacts, not just containment.
And score the handovers because a customer who has to start all over again with a human agent hasn’t really been contained. So hold every channel – human or automated – to the same standard because your customers already do.”
Most contact centres can report containment rates, but far fewer can measure whether the chatbot’s answers were actually correct.
A conversation ending with the chatbot does not necessarily mean the customer’s problem was solved, and so chatbots should be evaluated against the same standards as human advisors, including:
- Accuracy of information
- Alignment with the knowledge base
- Resolution quality
- Repeat contacts
- Effectiveness of handovers to human agents
A customer who has to repeat their issue after being transferred has not experienced a successful resolution, regardless of the containment metric.
One Standard for Every Customer Interaction
The future of quality assurance is not about giving every channel the same scorecard, it is about giving every channel the same quality standard.
By building a shared QA philosophy, expanding coverage through AI, and auditing chatbot performance with the same rigour as human interactions, contact centres can create a more complete and consistent view of customer experience.
Ultimately, customers judge the experience as a whole and quality assurance should do the same.
Author: Robyn Coppell
Reviewed by: Xander Freeman
Published On: 11th Sep 2026
Read more about - Video, Agent Performance, Agentic AI, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Chatbots, Chris Mounce, Digital Channels, evaluagent, Metrics, Omnichannel, Quality, Videos
