Make QA That Bit Easier on Everyone

For many, Quality Assurance (QA) in a contact centre is often perceived as an operational burden rather than a development opportunity, leaving both QA leads and agents frustrated.

Yet, when approached thoughtfully, QA can become an enabler – reducing friction, highlighting strengths, and ultimately helping everyone do the very best job they can of serving customers.

That’s why we spoke to our panel of quality experts about their top ideas for making QA that bit easier on everyone involved, so you can shift the dial towards a win–win situation.

Shift Conversations Away From Punishment

Resistance to QA is common – both from the agents being assessed and those sharing the QA guidance and results – especially if the focus is always on punishment.

However, if you can instead strive to run sessions with a goal of monitoring and encouragement – rather than punishment – you can help to break down some of this resistance. This ultimately makes for a far more engaging and interesting interaction where agents open up and truly listen to feedback, rather than withdraw into themselves and switch off.

Encouraging shared ownership can really make a difference here too.

Martin Jukes

“Make sure that agents understand what’s being measured and why.

It can also help for them to be involved in setting the assessment criteria, as involving agents and QA leads in defining assessment metrics together in the first place helps to keep everyone on the same page in the long run.

Ultimately, this increases engagement, collaboration, and reinforces the purpose behind QA.” – Martin Jukes, Managing Director, Mpathy Plus

Align QA Goals With Personal Goals to Keep Agents Engaged in the Conversation

Take this one step further by aligning positive behaviours with personal career goals. After all, when QA is positioned as a development tool, agents are more likely to take ownership of their improvement goals too.

By contrast, if a good score seems to have no real grounding in real life and purpose, it can all get very murky and nonsensical very quickly.

For example, “you want to be a vulnerable customer specialist, so let’s see if we can work on improving your empathy score” is a far more compelling conversation than “you scored 6/10, let’s see if you can make that 7/10 next time”.

And don’t underestimate the impact of fun either! Running different exercises, games, challenges, and activities within QA sessions can really help to make them something agents look forward to!

Reduce Admin to Create More Time for Coaching

Another way to make QA easier on all involved is to reduce the administrative burden on those leading the sessions.

Ashleigh Heldt, QA Lead, The White Company — Ashleigh Heldt

“We always focus on ways to reduce admin time around QA because the value to the agent is in the coaching conversation itself – not the supporting admin.

Streamlining forms and making feedback easily accessible via dashboards allows those carrying out QA to spend more time mentoring agents rather than updating spreadsheets.” – Ashleigh Heldt, QA Lead at The White Company

Investing time upfront in creating a management coaching toolkit can also help to save time on the prep work required for each session by putting forms, guides, and coaching modules at their fingertips. All helping to save time (and hassle!) without compromising the quality of the session.

Sometimes being short staffed also impacts coaching time. For practical methods to make time, read our article: How to Keep on Top of Training in a Short-Staffed Contact Centre

Avoid a One-Size-Fits-All Approach

Another way to think about it is that success starts long before the agent even sits down for the session itself, as matching day-to-day tasks to individual strengths can also make or break a QA session.

This is because you will inevitably have people in your team who are quick and efficient at handling simple tasks, and those who are better at trouble-shooting complex interactions with high empathy – so make sure you’re directing these queries properly in the first place to set everyone up to succeed.

After all, if you’re sitting in a coaching session with someone who is bored of simple queries or feeling completely overwhelmed at handling a distressed customer, you are already on the backfoot compared to if they are already handling work they are well suited to in the first place.

Dan Pratt, Founder & Director DAP Consultancy — Dan Pratt

“A one-size-fits-all approach often fails to recognize individual skills, leading to frustration for both agents and QA leads.

The analogy of a football team can really help illustrate this point, as a team needs attackers, defenders, midfielders, and a goalie to win; similarly, a contact centre requires diverse agent strengths to deliver consistent quality.” – Dan Pratt, Founder & Director of DAP Consultancy

By acknowledging these differences, QA teams can provide tailored coaching that maximizes individual performance – without starting every session on the back foot.

Explore How Technology Can Help to Streamline QA

And don’t forget to explore how technology can help make QA faster and more accurate.

Fatemeh Fasihi

“I’ve recently proposed we use an AI assistant that can support both QA and QC in real time.

For example, using real-time communication alerts, so if an agent uses an inappropriate tone, raises their voice, or uses taboo language, the assistant would immediately flag it and guide them to adjust their communication style to maintain customer satisfaction.

Not only this, but also real-time process validation, so if the agent is following the wrong workflow or skipping necessary steps, the assistant would provide instant alerts and show the correct process, reducing errors and improving handling time.” – Fatemeh Fasihi, Contact Centre Supervisor, Snappfood

Of course, it can be exciting but also overwhelming to explore the possibilities of using new technologies, but regularly having these types of conversations with your teams can keep them more open-minded to technology adoption and excited about the future.

If you want to get started using technology to improve quality assurance, read our article: Five AI Use Cases for Quality Monitoring

Foster a Culture of Collaboration and Continuous Improvement

Ultimately, making QA easier on all involved is about more than simplifying paperwork; it requires a holistic approach.

By rethinking QA processes, contact centres can foster a culture of collaboration, continuous improvement, and high-quality service – benefiting both agents and customers alike.

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