| Tutorial taken from Prosci's Quality Monitoring Toolkit |
| Tutorial taken from Prosci's Quality Monitoring Toolkit |
| Monitoring Calls - who, when and how often Module 2 of a 5 part series on quality monitoring The goal of this tutorial series is to present the Quality Monitoring Lifecycle and to explain the role quality monitoring has in the call center. Quality monitoring is an essential part of call center operations, but many times the real benefits of call monitoring are not realized - the monitoring takes place for the sake of monitoring. The first tutorial in this series presents the Quality Monitoring Lifecycle. This module describes the monitoring step in this lifecycle process. Modules 3 and 4 examine the next two steps of the process - feedback and coaching. The fifth module examines how to make the most of a quality monitoring program and the key lessons and improvements your program can produce. All modules come from the Quality Monitoring Toolkit.
Prosci's Quality Monitoring Lifecycle
Monitoring callsThis tutorial will help you answer key questions about call monitoring including:
Who Performs Quality Monitoring?The person or team you select to perform quality monitoring play a key role in the entire process. There are several different "levels" of monitors, each with unique pros and cons. Your choices for "who" monitors include:
You may use more than one monitor. For example, a new agent may be monitored regularly by a supervisor, but may also participate in peer or mentor monitoring.
Peer monitorsDescriptionPeer monitors are agents who monitor one other. Generally, one agent or a group of agents will listen to an agent's recorded call and then assess the contact based on evaluation criteria. The idea is to help agents learn from each other in a non-threatening environment where ideas for improvement are exchanged. It gives the agent who is being evaluated the opportunity to hear from peers who may offer tips and ideas from their own experience.
Mentor monitorsDescriptionMentor monitors are generally agents who have consistently displayed exemplary performance. These top-notch agents are assigned as a mentor others who are new or struggling in some area. The mentor monitors the agent's contact and gives feedback to both the agent and the supervisor.
Team leader monitorsDescriptionTeam leader monitors are top-level, veteran agents who represent a team of agents. These agents are often on their way to becoming supervisors and they are viewed with respect by their fellow employees. They generally act as the voice of a group of agents and are often in mentoring and training roles.
Supervisors or managersDescriptionSupervisors or managers control and direct their specific department or unit of the call center. They are responsible for overseeing their agents' performance as well as the smooth operation of the call center overall. Monitoring by supervisors is the most common. The primary disadvantages to supervisor monitoring are that agents in different groups may not be evaluated in the same objective manner, and overall feedback from the monitoring process into other parts of the operation is more difficult to compile and manage.
Quality monitoring teamDescriptionA quality monitoring team generally consists of a dedicated call center staff that only do quality monitoring. The quality monitoring team assesses an agent's contact performance according to specific evaluation criteria. The team's main goal is to provide objective feedback that is the result of consistently applied criteria. Overall data analysis and feedback into training and hiring is simplified with this process. One disadvantage to this approach is that feedback to agents is often better received from the supervisor, and if the QA team gives the feedback to the supervisor to then give to the employee, there can exist a disconnect (especially if the agent prompts the supervisor for examples or more details about the call that the supervisor simply does not have).
Outside quality assurance teamDescriptionAn outside quality assurance team is company or organization you contract with in order to ensure the quality of your call center performance. The company or organization will monitor a set number of calls per agent per month, and will then perform an assessment of skills gaps, group or call center issues, individual performance and improvement metrics. The evaluations are generally done from a remote location, but may take place inside the call center itself.
BenchmarksAccording to recent benchmarking studies, only a very small percentage of call centers rely on external quality assurance vendors. By a wide margin, call centers use a quality monitoring team and supervisors to perform monitoring. Only a small number of call centers use only peers or mentors in this capacity. Most use peer monitors and mentor monitors in addition to other monitors.
Benchmarking results - Who monitors calls?
Ensuring objectivityShould you elect to use in-house monitors (peers, mentors, team leaders, supervisors or managers, or an internal quality monitoring team), maintaining objectivity will quickly become an important issue. Calibration is a commonly used term in call centers. When evaluations are calibrated, they are "checked, adjusted, or determined by comparison with a standard." This practice prevents a monitor from evaluating an agent too harshly or too leniently as compared to other agents with similar performance levels.
How frequently is quality monitoring performed?Frequency benchmarksThe chart below is from the Call Center Best Practices Special Operations Edition benchmarking report. It demonstrates the shift occurring in quality monitoring practices in companies around the globe. By a wide margin, the majority of call centers today are monitoring on a weekly or semi-weekly basis.
Frequency of call monitoring Generally speaking, agents should be monitored an average of once or twice per week. This may vary depending on factors unique to your call center, but it represents a frequency level that is currently working for many call centers and that others are migrating toward.
How frequently should you monitor?Before you decide how often you will monitor agents, consider several things that relate to your call center in general.
When should you monitor?When you actually perform monitoring will depend on a number of variables. Variables that will affect the monitoring schedule include:
It is in your best interest to carefully consider how these variables can affect the outcome of the monitoring program.
Agent classificationAgent classification plays an important role in when agents should be monitored. Struggling and new agents should be monitored at different times than veteran and successful agents. It is not in the best interest of agents, the monitor, or the monitoring program to lump new and struggling agents in the same group as veteran and successful agents.
More information on this topicThe Quality Monitoring Toolkit is the basis for this tutorial series and is the most comprehensive guide available for quality monitoring. Whether you are just starting a new program for monitoring contacts or need to overhaul your current call monitoring process, this toolkit provides definitive guidelines and templates for both phone and multi-media contact monitoring. Using research data from more than 400 call centers, the toolkit includes benchmarking results that will make your quality monitoring program a success. The toolkit includes:
Coming next - the feedback step of the quality monitoring process
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