Quick Wins to Improve Information Accuracy

Answering customers’ questions isn’t just about speed – it’s about accuracy too! After all, when advisors provide inconsistent or incorrect information, it doesn’t just frustrate customers; it can lead to repeat contacts, complaints, and a loss of trust in your brand.

And whilst maintaining information accuracy is no small task, there are some quick wins out there that can help you stay on top of things. That’s why we asked our consultants panel for their experiences of what works best on a busy contact centre floor.

“Play, Pause, Resume” Helps Advisors Spot and Correct Misunderstandings

In our wonderful world of customer contact, information accuracy isn’t just about having the right answers, it’s about making those answers stick in the minds and muscle memory of your advisors.

One of my favourite ways to do this is through a playful, high‑energy training technique I call “Play, Pause, Resume”.

Here’s how it works: we play a real customer call, hit Pause right before the advisor responds, and ask the group, “Okay… What happens next?”

Advisors then share their predictions, debate their thinking, and then we hit Resume to hear the actual response. Cue the nods, the surprises, and the collective “Ooooh that makes sense!”  

But what’s secretly happening underneath this fun? A whole lot of brain stuff, that’s what! By asking advisors to predict the answer, we tap into retrieval practice, one of the most powerful ways to boost accuracy and long‑term memory.

Pair that with peer-to-peer learning and discussion and you get advisors strengthening each other’s understanding and building shared, consistent interpretations of complex circumstances. 

Contributed by: Emily Simmons, Head of Learner Engagement, Boost HR

As Products Change, Make Sure Support Documentation Is Also Updated and Tested As Part of the Sign-Off Process

Nothing the customer sees, touches or engages with should pass a design gate unless support documentation is in place and has been tested.

As products, services and touchpoints change, support documentation must also be updated and tested as part of the sign-off process. In both cases I expect Customer Support to be the signatories.

But agent involvement goes beyond design practices. The frontline is best placed to provide operational feedback. This calls for empathy, communication and initiative as well as the mechanics of change.

Agents must recognize when information is failing them and the customer, think on their feet to help and feedback the problem and the solution they discovered.

Contributed by: Michelle Spaul, Customer Experience Management Consultant 

For their ideas on how to keep agent knowledge up to date, read our article: Keep Agent Knowledge Up to Date – Without Overwhelming Them

Correlate Insights Between the Information Given and “What the Customer Did Next…”

The technologies available mean there is no longer an excuse for providing agents with incomplete, inaccurate, or outdated information.

Paper copies of Standard Operating Procedures – which were impossible to navigate and updated annually – are a thing of the past.

Correlations between how a customer was handled and what happened subsequently to their account/relationship with the brand can be identified and analysed with minimal effort, thereby understanding customer journey/lifecycle and prompting next-best actions and presenting the right information to agents in real time. 

Contributed by: Neville Doughty, Partnerships & Growth Director at Customer Contact Panel

Create a Centralized List of Alternative Organizations That Customers Can Be Referred to at Any Given Moment

Every company should have a list of alternative organizations that customers can be referred to at any given moment. The list should feature common organizations that are likely to be used on a regular basis.

Some great examples include debt charities, citizens advice lines, and dispute resolution services.

Having the list ready and available will ensure that callers who would benefit from a referral can be served quickly and efficiently with no unnecessary delays and inconsistencies.

Contributed by: Rachel Williams, Founder & Training Consultant at The Experience Corporation

Distinguish Between What Genuinely Needs to Be Internalized Versus What Just Needs to Be “One Click Away”

There’s a question I keep coming back to whenever I start working with a new team: Are we asking people to carry knowledge or to know where to find it?

It sounds like a small distinction, but it changes everything. For a long time, the default response in most operations was to train more, update more, communicate more.

And the result, more often than not, wasn’t a better-prepared team. It was an exhausted one.

The high-performing teams I’ve worked with over the years made a quiet but important shift: they stopped treating knowledge as something to be memorized and started treating it as something that simply needs to be accessible.

That change in perspective, from holding knowledge to finding it, takes an enormous amount of pressure off people.

Neither of these requires an expensive platform or a months-long project. They require intention, a shared agreement, and a culture where updating knowledge is seen as part of the job, not an afterthought.

Contributed by: Jose Luiz De Oliveira Neto, Founder of EncantaCX Consultoria

Create Simple Feedback Loops Where Agents Can Flag Issues in Real Time

One of the most effective ways to improve accuracy is to treat agents not just as users of information but as active contributors to improving it.

Frontline teams are uniquely positioned to spot inconsistencies, outdated guidance or gaps in knowledge.

Organizations should create simple feedback loops where agents can flag issues in real time, with a clear process for reviewing and updating content quickly. This creates a living knowledge base – rather than a static repository.

Contributed by: James Edmonds, Managing Director at Duty CX

Train People to Use Information Effectively

Over the previous year, I’ve conducted over 450 interviews with people and this theme has come up on numerous occasions, so it’s clearly still ongoing and critical.

All these conversations share a core insight: accurate information requires not just data storage, but context, accessibility, and continuous support systems. 

Rather than simply having information available, these solutions focus on:

• Making information easily discoverable and actionable
• Enriching raw data with context and expertise
• Training people to use information effectively, which encourages them to keep it up to date and correct
• Supporting the human element (agents, consultants, customers) in accessing and applying information correctly

For example, good knowledge hubs help agents access accurate, up-to-date information. In part, it enables customer service teams to have centralized, organized information that can be integrated with contact centre platforms, allowing agents to provide consistent and accurate responses.

Contributed by: James Parkin, Founder of Ellison Coast

For practical methods contact centre leaders can use to keep on top of training even when short-staffed, read our article: How to Keep on Top of Training in a Short-Staffed Contact Centre

Schedule Regular Review Cycles to Reduce the Risk of Outdated Guidance Remaining in Circulation

Process design is critical. Many organizations still rely on multiple disconnected systems or lengthy documents that make it difficult to locate the right information during a live conversation.

Structured knowledge management, clear ownership of content, and regular review cycles can dramatically reduce the risk of outdated guidance remaining in circulation. 

Technology can support this further. AI-enabled knowledge tools can help surface the most relevant information quickly and highlight when content is inconsistent across systems.

Contributed by: James Edmonds, Managing Director at Duty CX

Invite Agents to Contribute and Give Feedback on Article Search Terms

Invite agents to contribute and give feedback on article search terms. Agent search terms often differ from knowledge base keywords.

So, show the new article to your agents and ask them what they would use as keywords.

AI agent assist tools can take the human agent’s search terms, find the article quickly, and even summarize details from the article.

That makes it easier for the agent to focus on the customer conversation, instead of “babysitting” the knowledge base.

Contributed by: Mike Aoki, President of Reflective Keynotes Inc.

For examples of how AI is helping agents to find the correct information, read our article: Is AI Really a Game-Changer in Knowledge Management?

…And Double-Check Your Search Function Is Actually Working As It Should

Every organization must have an up-to-date knowledge hub which includes key policies, key organizational dates, guidance documents and organizational approaches.

However, to ensure the knowledge hub is effective, it should include a working search function so that agents can quickly look up keywords whilst they are speaking with a customer.

For example, relevant guidance should be displayed when an agent searches for ‘refund policy discretion’ or ‘Christmas opening times’.

Contributed by: Rachel Williams, Founder & Training Consultant at The Experience Corporation

What Do You Do to Maintain Information Accuracy in Your Contact Centre?

Click here to join our Readers Panel to share your experiences and feature in future Call Centre Helper articles.

If you are looking for more information to help improve your contact centre, read these articles next:

• Want to Foster Knowledge Sharing Between Your Agents?
• Want Your Frontline Staff to Share More Customer Feedback? Try This!
• Make Continuous Improvement Part of Your DNA

Author: Megan Jones
Reviewed by: Jo Robinson