“This call may be recorded for quality and training purposes.”
All of us have heard this message when making a call to a business. But what is it all about? It comes down to call quality monitoring best practices, which we’ll get into in this article.
Call monitoring is the practice of listening to previously recorded or live calls to check up on the performance of call representatives. It can also be done to develop support and sales strategies, score calls for leads, and improve marketing and sales efforts.
Call monitoring can be used for training as the combination of call monitoring and analytics offers insight into agent performance and customer interactions. Call monitoring allows managers to determine where agents need to improve and create training that gives them a chance.
Call Monitoring and Other Tools for Training Agents
Having access to call monitoring is essential for tracking agent performance. Leaders can listen to calls that are going on between agents and customers or leads. Managers can access these calls in real time from anywhere.
With call center quality monitoring, managers can listen to calls and assess performance. They can even jump onto calls as needed. However, there are several types of call monitoring to be aware of.
Call Listening
Call listening is when a manager listens in on a call without the participants knowing. It’s an excellent way to determine how an agent works with prospects or communicates with customers. Sales and customer support managers can listen to calls and provide feedback to agents about what they experience.
Call Whispering
Call whispering is another type of call monitoring that differs from call listening. In this situation, a manager can communicate with an agent while the customer isn’t aware it is happening. This is often done in sensitive and high-ticket situations.
Supervisors and managers can coach an agent verbally without jumping into the conversation. This allows managers to provide real-time training moments in the most effective moments.
Call Barging
The final method for managers to monitor calls is by barge. This is when a manager goes on the call with the agent and the customer. Unlike call whispering, the customer and agent can hear the manager when they join in this manner.
This is an example of call quality monitoring best practices. Someone can come onto the call if the agent is having trouble. The manager can take over if the agent can’t answer a question or has trouble understanding the customer. This ensures the best results are provided to the customer.
How to Use a Call Center Quality Monitoring Scorecard
With so many methods to monitor cards, they can be a huge benefit for a call center (or other businesses). One of the best ways to do this is using a call center quality monitoring scorecard. This is a way to monitor a customer’s experience across every touchpoint.
First, you must define goals and metrics for agent performance. Then, scorecards can be used as a self-evaluation tool for them to track their performance. The idea is to give agents better awareness of how they perform, where they could improve, and how their performance impacts the company.
The great thing about a scorecard is that it isn’t just useful for phone calls. They focus on a specific agent so they can be used for email, social media, chat, text, complaint tickets, and more. This lets you track, measure, train, and design better customer experiences on all levels.
This can be done for all quality standards associated with your customers and overall business. This applies to the outcome, customer perception, employee attitude, productivity, customer satisfaction, brand experience, compliance, and empathy.
Any elements you want to include can be added to the scorecards, such as:
- Outcome questions
- Soft skills questions
- Compliance questions
- Process questions
- And any others that matter to your company
A call center quality monitoring scorecard is customizable to meet your needs. Choose what you find most essential and include it. It can be totally quantitative or fully holistic. It all comes down to what you desire.
Incorporating Agent Feedback as Part of Call Quality Monitoring Best Practices
Scorecards are an important aspect of agent performance since self-evaluation allows them to improve. When self-scoring, agents learn to review their behavior, empowering them to improve continuously and proactively. This can lead to agents who:
- Exhibit better control over the way they communicate with customers
- Have a 4.4% better response time
- Experience more stable interactions with customers
Managers and agents can both play a part in reviewing agent performance. This opens up better communication. Agents get insight into their performance while learning more about what they do well and where they can improve. Highlighting the positives and negatives can give agents a reason to change in good ways.
Choosing the Right Call Monitoring Tools
Now that you know how useful call monitoring is, you might be curious about which tools are best for it. It depends on your needs, but some features are very useful. Great call monitoring software will offer the things listed below:
- Compliance with state and federal regulations and laws
- Various functions, such as whisper, barge, and listen
- Comprehensive reports to highlight coaching opportunities
- Call center quality assurance for improved service
- Automated audit trails for all communication
- Seamless handling of calls, emails, and texts
- Third-party integration to use with your existing tools
- Intelligent routing for outbound calls and predictive dialing for agents
- Customizable dashboards for supervisors and managers
- Ability to scale for your current and future needs
Final Thoughts
Are you interested in incorporating call quality monitoring best practices in your business? The experts at Esendex are here to help you. We offer voice broadcasting services to give you more flexibility when creating and making calls.
In addition, we offer SMS software, SMS APIs, and other tools to make communication simple at your company. Contact us today to learn more about integrating our services and scaling your business.
