What Should I Be Doing As A Quality Analyst In Customer Service?

A survey by Walker revealed customer experience will overtake products and pricing as the primary brand differentiator as of next year.

That’s why, as a quality analyst in customer service, you play a crucial role in your call center’s success.

You have the power to help customer service improve as part of an ongoing quality assurance program. Without your expertise, the management team may not understand where it’s going wrong and struggle to achieve the level of service to which it aspires.

However knowing what’s required and expected of you as a quality analyst can confuse, especially at the start of your career.

Below, we take a closer look at the definition of quality analyst in BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) and what you should do as a quality analyst, covering everything from your duties to implementing changes.

How Would You Help Contribute to the Success of the Organization as a Quality Analyst?

You should target goals on how to be a good quality analyst: 

1. Understanding the Company Values and Mission

 Every business has its own values and objectives, even if they’re almost identical from one to the next. For call centers handling inbound and outbound calls for an external company, you must take time to explore and understand its core mission if you’re going to take its CX to the next level.

Discuss this with managers and investigate ways in which values have been upheld. What has worked well so far and what they could improve? How are targets being hit and missed?

This will help you know what to watch out for when evaluating agents’ performance and creating strategies to achieve better service. Understanding the definition of a quality analyst in a BPO is essential for yourself and management, so make sure everyone involved knows what you’re there for.

2. Monitoring Interactions

Monitoring communications between service agents and customers is a fundamental part of your role as quality analyst.

This includes calls and live chats. Call recording software should be readily available to capture random or specific interactions for later review. You may listen to live calls too, if you wish to deliver feedback or coaching while agents are working.

You’ll be identifying flaws in each agent’s service, based on the standardized scoring model established during your QA calibration session. These may include genuine mistakes like forgetting to ask a particular question or deliberate faults, such as responding to abusive customers in kind.

The more you get to know the company, the staff and the customers, the easier this part of the job will become. You can use custom scorecards to measure performance based on many KPIs, to guide your evaluation process.

3. Studying Industry Trends

Quality analysts should explore industry trends to stay updated on crucial changes. You can take your findings and incorporate them into your coaching and/or training, or take data directly to management.

Staying current on industry trends ensures your call center will be on the cutting edge of service and the ability to keep up with competitors.

4. Deliver Feedback, Coaching And Training

After monitoring and evaluating service agents, team leaders and even managers, you’ll share your findings with them.

This can be a delicate process (which we’ll go into in greater detail below), but providing feedback is a valuable opportunity to help employees grow. They may not be aware of certain mistakes they make or struggle to understand their lack of motivation until you help them.

Your work is fundamental to an effective training program, guiding employees to deliver stronger customer service based on hard data. Base coaching and training on your findings, tailored to each member of staff. You may do both solo, or you could do it alongside team leaders and managers.

What Obstacles Do You Face as a Quality Analyst?

One of the major challenges you may face as a quality analyst is resistance. Service agents and team leaders could feel resentful of your work if they don’t fully understand what your goals are.

For example, they might believe you’re monitoring their interactions to help management root out weaker employees ripe to be fired. This means managers have done a bad job implementing the quality assurance program, and have to be more transparent with staff to encourage cooperation.

Another potential impediment is outdated or poor quality software. You need a solid QA platform to help manage your quality assurance work. This empowers you with direct access to different data from across multiple channels. Management must invest in the best QA software if they want you to fulfill your potential.

How to Evaluate Customer Service Agents’ Performance

You’ll evaluate service agents’ performance using call recording software and live chat tools. This allows you to listen in on conversations between employees and customers, measuring the quality of CX based on specific metrics.

Do this at random, and without bias, favoring one agent over another can lead to unbalanced evaluation. You may miss mistakes that cause problems down the line, possibly dragging down the entire team’s performance.

Create custom scorecards that reflect the company’s goals and values. Gather customer feedback too, using post-interaction surveys — this gives you direct views on agents’ performance and identifies growth opportunities.

How to Deliver Feedback to Customer Service Agents

As a quality analyst in customer service, have strong communication skills. Telling people where they’re going wrong in their job can be problematic if you’re not sensitive to their feelings.

Make sure you focus on the positives and prevent your critiques from coming across as a personal attack. You should support your criticism and suggestions with evidence, using data from your monitoring. If it helps, explain the definition of quality analyst in a BPO, they’ll get a better idea of why you’re chatting to them.

Invite agents to listen to their own interactions and share their thoughts on your comments. Do they agree with your findings, or do they think you’re being too harsh? What ideas do they have to improve their service?

Be empathetic and transparent. Be friendly and willing to listen. If you cannot get service agents onside, they’re less likely to take your guidance on board.

How to Share Results and Insights with Team Leaders

Team leaders and managers must implement necessary changes into everyday processes based on your findings. They’re essential for bridging the gap between yourself and the agents themselves. If they cannot get involved, your job’s likely to be much more difficult. Especially if staff see you as an enemy “out to get” them.

Hold one or two meetings each week to keep team leaders and managers aware of any issues you’ve flagged during quality assurance. Use the comprehensive reporting tools available in the best QA software to show them the impact poor service has on CX, and work together to create improvement strategies.

The goal is to educate agents and motivate them to work to a higher standard. Everyone in the call center has to get involved in the quality assurance program to make it as effective as it can be. That’s why full transparency and collaboration is so vital.

Conclusion

As a quality analyst in customer service, you have a large part to play in your call center’s ongoing success. Your call monitoring, evaluation and feedback is all fundamental to drive growth, benefitting both employees and customers alike.

Follow the tips explored above to make the most of your role, take advantage of the best tools available, listen to customers and always focus on agents’ positives.