How to Level Up Your QA Programme in 2026

The role of Quality Assurance (QA) in contact centres has never been more complex.

As customer expectations evolve and digital channels proliferate, QA professionals face the challenge of balancing compliance, efficiency, and empathy, with a pressing desire to modernize their programmes.

To help get you started on tackling these challenges head on, we spoke to Derek Corcoran at Scorebuddy to explore the findings in more depth:

10 Ways to Level Up Your QA Programme in 2026

We’ve also pulled together our Top 10 Recommendations for QA Professionals – combining our latest industry research with fresh insights from industry experts Adam Boelke, Dan Pratt, Dara Kiernan, and Garry Gormley.

1. Shift From Reactive Analysis to Proactive Action

There’s a huge appetite for real-time QA right now, with 44.3% of respondents citing it as the change they would most like to make to their QA programme.

And it’s not hard to see why! Real-time QA is more than a technological upgrade; it transforms QA into a strategic, performance-driving engine, allowing teams to identify gaps and intervene before small issues escalate into customer complaints or churn.

“Quality Assurance has always been the cornerstone for improving customer experience and creating a culture of continuous improvement, but traditionally, it has always felt a little like reviewing the “black box” after the flight has landed.

Now that AI-driven real-time sentiment analysis and behaviour monitoring is more accessible, it’s not surprising that ‘Auto/Real-Time QA’ is the most desired change leaders would like to see.

This is an opportunity to shift from reactive analysis to proactive action. To gain real-time insights and course-correct during the customer interaction itself, to improve FCR, sales, and customer satisfaction on the spot.” – Adam Boelke, Founder of the Alignment Advantage Group

Watch the video below to find out what else was discussed when Call Centre Helper’s Megan Jones spoke to Adam Boelke, Founder of the Alignment Advantage Group, about our research and how contact centres can be proactive with quality monitoring:

2. Ditch the Spreadsheets

Spreadsheets are still in use by many teams, but reliance is declining – from 65.9% to 55.2% between 2024 and 2025 alone.

This is promising to see, as this desire to move away from spreadsheets shows that leaders want actionable insights beyond just ticking boxes. They want the detail necessary to develop agents effectively and improve performance.

Quite frankly, investing in scalable, analytics-driven QA platforms is no longer optional – it’s a strategic necessity. What are you waiting for?

3. Keep Coaching Human-Centric

That being said, even with AI and automation, human coaching remains indispensable. QA insights should be used to enhance agent development – rather than replace human judgement.

The most important part of QA has always been coaching. The new capabilities available today – AI, sentiment analysis, and analytics – turn QA into a high-performance engine, but the human touch is what continues to drive engagement and customer loyalty, so don’t lose sight of that.

QA leaders must blend technology with empathy, ensuring agents are supported, developed, and empowered to deliver exceptional experiences.

4. Do Whatever You Can to Try and Make More Time for Calibration Sessions

While technology adoption is vital, human insight remains central – so don’t underestimate the importance of regular calibration sessions either.

After all, aligning what you think is a good call with your agent’s definition, your manager’s definition, and even your boss’s definition is critical to progress. It’s what turns QA from a policing exercise into a tool for genuine development.

Unfortunately, this is an area that too often suffers – with our research revealing that 20.8% of QA professionals want more time for analysing and calibrating interactions.

So, if this is all-too-familiar, take a step back to review where you could possibly carve out more time in your week for these sessions – even reviewing the smaller things like the regularity of other meetings and the creation of reports (that no one ever reads) can all help to buy back precious time that can make a big difference in the long run.

5. Be More Agile With Your Scorecard Questions

Do you know when you last changed the questions on your scorecards?

Our research found that just over half (53.8%) of companies last changed their scorecards in the past year. Encouragingly, some 26.4% updated in the past month, and 4.7% in the past week. But around 10% had not updated in five years, and 4.7% never had!

As Dara Kiernan, Leadership Development and Contact Centre Consultant, puts so bluntly:

“Changing a quality scorecard is a bit like changing your bedsheets. Everyone agrees it should happen regularly, most people do it eventually, and a brave few admit they’ve left it far too long.”

Yet in a world where customer expectations are measured in swipes and clicks rather than days, you cannot afford to be working with static scorecards. They must be treated as living frameworks that evolve alongside customer behaviour, regulatory requirements, and business priorities.

Watch the video below to find out what else was discussed when Call Centre Helper’s Megan Jones spoke to Dara Kiernan, Owner/Consultant/Author at KPI Services Limited, about our research and how often contact centres should change their scorecards:

6. Be Sure to Measure the Right Attributes on Digital Channels

Make sure you are assessing the quality of your digital channels with the nuance they deserve too. After all, with digital interactions now central to customer engagement, QA professionals must carefully select which attributes to measure.

Not sure where to start? Our research currently shows compliance ranks highest (69.1%), followed by advisor empathy (60.8%) and speed of response (58.8%), whilst friendliness (50.5%) and spelling/grammar (52.6%) lag behind.

So, what’s driving these trends?

“What we’re seeing is a market that has moved beyond measuring superficial markers of service quality. The real markers of success are compliance, empathy, and speed balanced with quality.

Why? Three key forces stand out. First, regulatory pressure is driving compliance to the top of the agenda. Second, AI and automation are taking over transactional tasks, freeing human advisors to focus on higher-value interactions.

Third, customer expectations have matured: people expect efficiency and professionalism, but they are increasingly loyal to organizations that show empathy and integrity.” – Dan Pratt, Founder and Director of DAP Consultancy

Watch the video below to find out what else was discussed when Call Centre Helper’s Rachael Trickey spoke to Dan Pratt, Founder & Director of DAP Consultancy, about our research and why more CX leaders are measuring empathy on digital channels:

7. Start Small When Rolling Out AI

Despite the enthusiasm for AI, barriers remain – particularly around budget constraints.

However, starting with manageable projects can allow your QA team to build confidence, prove value, and scale AI adoption safely – all helping to break down barriers to adoption.

“With lots of competing priorities and the answer to all of them being AI, it’s no wonder contact centre leaders are struggling to decide what to do and how to approach these problems – especially when, even before looking at tech, some AI experts want to charge a fortune to do the discovery work required. 

This leads to the first barrier around budget or concern on the ROI. Advice here is to start small, and think about the key use cases that will almost guarantee you some return on your investment!

Yes, Auto QA is a very attractive one here. However, smaller use cases like auto summarization are likely to give a quicker gain and are much easier to deploy and showcase the ROI in the form of AHT and wrap reductions, so don’t bite off more than you can chew to begin with.” – Garry Gormley, Founder of FAB Solutions

Watch the video below to find out what else was discussed when Call Centre Helper’s Xander Freeman spoke to Garry Gormley, Founder of FAB Solutions, about our research and how contact centres should be using AI for Quality Assurance:

8. Showcase Where Other Contact Centres Are Already Seeing Success With AI

AI has moved from experimental to essential – with top-rated use cases including AI-driven QA scorecards, speech and sentiment analysis, and flagging critical interactions for manual review.

And with more and more case studies being published every week, there’s a growing bank of inspiration and evidence to help you build your business case. So make good use of them!

9. Don’t Overlook the Need for Smooth Integration With Existing Tools

That being said, AI is only effective if it integrates seamlessly with existing contact centre technology.

So be sure to consider any possible integration challenges upfront. This may involve middleware, secure data transfers, or direct platform connectivity. Understanding how new AI tools fit into your existing stack is critical for success.

This approach will help to avoid disruption, maintain data integrity, and ensure secure handling of sensitive customer interactions.

10. Give Your People the Skills They Need for the Future

Technology alone is insufficient. QA teams must develop internal expertise, assign champions, and partner with external specialists where needed.

Internal skills are often the biggest barrier to this, so assign someone to own the process, become the SME, and learn alongside your vendors – as this upskilling ensures sustainable AI adoption and maximizes ROI.

A strong focus on training also ensures QA professionals can use both AI and traditional insights to drive continuous improvement.

2026 Is the Year to Modernize, Automate, and Humanize

Ultimately for QA professionals, 2026 is the year to modernize, automate, and humanize – to embrace AI without losing the critical human insight that turns data into real-world improvement. It’s certainly an exciting road ahead!

If you are interested in learning more about improving your contact centre QA, check out our webinar: Best Practices in Performance and Quality Management

Author: Megan Jones