Maximize Your Next QA Calibration Session

QA calibration sessions are critical to making sure every agent is being scored fairly – especially when performance is tied to financial bonuses and the emotional stakes are high!

So, how do you make sure your calibration sessions are as effective as they can be? We spoke to QA experts Adam Boelke, Afshan Kinder, Claire Hedley, and Dan Pratt to find out.

Double-Check You Are Involving All the Right People

Don’t leave anyone out of the conversation!

The very first thing you need to do is bring all the right people together for your calibration session (or series of calibration sessions, as the case may be).

Typically, there are 3 sub-groups to consider:

1. Key Stakeholders

These are your supervisors, managers, QA teams, and team leaders – essentially everyone involved in supporting the agent in delivering great service.

Alignment across these individuals underpins success and avoids situations where you’re celebrating in one department but another thinks it’s all rubbish! After all, you’ve got to have integrity in your numbers and scoring!

2. The Agents Themselves

The next group to consider is your agents. It can really help for them to listen in to some calls, as well as use your QA scorecard to see how they’d mark each other’s calls to get a sense of what they think makes or breaks a conversation.

It’s also good to look beyond the scorecard here too, with the broader question of “Did we meet the customer’s need?” to open up the conversation around opportunities for improvement.

3. External Partners and Sister Sites

Don’t stop internally either! If your organization extends across outsourcing partners and sister sites, set aside time to bring them into the conversation too.

Don’t Ever Let Your Sessions Feel Like a One-Off Tick-Box Exercise

Once you’ve got the right people in the room(s), your next focus needs to be around creating a positive and productive conversation.

Kick-start this mindset by making sure all calibration sessions are linked together in a series – and that they don’t just feel like one-off, tick-box exercises where nothing ever changes.

After all, when people see that their investment of time and ideas is driving progress, they’ll feel far more engaged than if they keep showing up to sessions where the last meeting’s ideas have been forgotten about.

“It’s important to start every QA calibration session by first referring to the previous one. How did it go? What did we learn from that? What data did we review? What pain points did we uncover?

And, most importantly, where have we made progress in these areas since we last spoke?” – Dan Pratt, Founder & Director of DAP Consultancy

Set the Stage for Open and Honest Conversations

It’s equally important when you set up a calibration session that, as a leader, you set some ground rules, and that everyone not only understands its importance but respects the process and feels safe to share their views.

The format of the sessions can really help drive this behaviour. For example, it can be really effective if you do a practice exercise where you all listen to the same call, mark it individually, and then write down scores on paper and hold it up.

The goal should then be to get your scores within a certain percentage of each other, and also to prompt debate around why someone gave it a 6/10 whilst someone else gave the same call a 9/10.

“You need to make sure everybody feels comfortable sharing their opinions and that conversations aren’t stunted by the fear factor. It’s about getting there together, and the only way to do this is to set the tone and open up the floor for honest conversation.

It’s not about casting judgement, but talking about where the variance is coming from and narrowing that gap – even taking the time to drill down on the reasons why someone marked them up on that point or marked them down there.

The more you collaborate, the more conversation you have, and the more understanding you create, the more productive your calibration sessions are going to be!” – Adam Boelke, Founder of the Alignment Advantage Group

For advice on applying key communication skills in your contact centre, read our article: The 7 Cs of Effective Communication

Set Mini Projects and Tasks to Keep Momentum Between Sessions

When the session is coming to a close, don’t just wrap up and walk out of the room!  

Instead, make a habit of doing the same follow-up actions every time, to keep momentum between now and the next session, including to:

• Set mini projects for individuals to drive real progress across the next month.
• Round up key themes and learnings to share with agents and the wider team, so any collective weaknesses are shared outside of the meeting and are addressed.

Don’t forget to tailor any learnings back to individual performance too.

“Another good outcome of a QA calibration session is to use the insights to identify the best coaching strategy for individuals in your team – particularly to identify their strengths and opportunities in these areas.

Then, pick one opportunity that is a driver of a KPI and build out a coaching strategy to help your team member progress in that area in the coming weeks.” – Afshan Kinder, Thought Leader and co-author of three books

…And Always Focus on the Future!

Then always, always close the loop! When it comes to the next session, bring back results and outcomes. 

Re-strategize if need be. This way, the focus will always be on the future and driving positive change – not just dwelling on (and even moaning!) about the past.

How Do You Make Sure Your QA Calibration Sessions Are Effective?

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With thanks to the following people for sharing their thoughts for this article:

• Adam Boelke, Founder of the Alignment Advantage Group, and author of the “7 Cs to Success” mastermind course on leadership & culture
• Afshan Kinder, Thought Leader and co-author of three books – including ‘Call Centers for Dummies’
• Claire Hedley, Witness Service Referral Hub at Citizens Advice Gateshead
• Dan Pratt, Founder & Director of DAP Consultancy

For more information to improve quality in your contact centre, watch our Recorded Webinar: Best Practices in Performance and Quality Management and read these articles next:

• Stay Ahead in QA and Call Recording
• How to Calibrate Quality Scores
• How to Structure a Quality Coaching Session

Author: Megan Jones
Reviewed by: Jo Robinson