Double Dinging and Domino Dinging
In the world of Quality Assessment (QA) there are few injuries more heinous to a Customer Service Representative (CSR) than to "double ding" them. In the parlance of Call Center QA, this means that you mark them down on two different QA elements for the same behavioral infraction. For example, the CSR ...Who QA's the QA Team?
It's a classic dilemma. The Quality Assesment (QA) team, whether it's supervisor or separate QA analyst, evaluates calls and coaches Customer Service Reps (CSRs). But, how do you know that they are doing a good job with their evaluations and their coaching? Who QA's the QA team? The question is a good one, ...Why Monitor Your Company's Phone Calls?
While it seems that everyone is monitoring phone calls these days, and it is certainly the norm in the call center industry, the reality is that there are many small to mid-sized companies who have not entered the world of call monitoring. Some companies are unaware that the technology ...Improvement Priorities: Don't Major on the Minors
I grew up as a competitive swimmer. When I first started as a child, I literally could not swim across the width of the pool. I began by learning how to swim. As I progressed to racing, it was amazing how a few fundamental changes could result in several seconds improvement in ...10 Ways Being a Theatre Major Prepared me for Success
Yesterday I posted Ten Ways Being a Theatre Major Prepared Me for Success on my personal blog. Thought I’d link to it in the event that any SQC subscribers would be ...
The Check-Out Line and Hold Button Have Glaring Similarities
The Wall Street Journal had a great article this morning about the science of finding the best check-out line. Within the article, it talked about what happens when you are in queue for a period of time: Envirosell, a retail consultancy, has timed shoppers in line with a stopwatch to determine how real wait times ...
Year-End QA Considerations
For many companies, the months of November, December and January signal the end of a fiscal year. With the end of the year comes annual performance management reviews which often include a service quality component. It is quite typical for this service quality component to be a score from the call monitoring and coaching QA ...
Podcast: Discipline Issues That Effect Your QA Program
The data and reports coming out of many QA teams is both inaccurate and invalid because of discipline problems underlying the process. In this short audio Service Quality Central podcast, Tom Vander Well explores three common discipline problems and provides simply solutions for spot checking your own ...
Getting Started with QA: Getting Your Feet Wet
On the workbench in my garage is a router and router table. I bought it several years ago. It’s a nice one. I even bought a bunch of jigs for creating different kinds of edges. In all the time I’ve had it, I’ve turned it on less than five times. The problem is, I am ...
SQC Visits Grand Rapids!
Just a quick shout out to readers in the Grand Rapids or Western Michigan area. I’ll be in your neck of the woods September 27-30 and would love the opportunity to network with local call center professionals or visit businesses/contact centers who have followed QAQnA/Service Quality Central. It would be great to get together to discuss ...
Beware of “Metrics Deception”
When talking to managers about their contact center’s quality program I’ll often ask what they are currently doing to measure quality. “Well, we generate reports each day that give us various quality metrics which we then track. Those metrics then go into a monthly quality report to senior management and are broken down ...
Defiance is More Work Than Behavior Change
Years ago I went back to visit some old teachers and to thank them for their influence in my life. I enjoyed some great conversations. When I asked one teacher how things were at my alma mater, he sighed and shook his head. “If students put have as much energy into studying as they expended ...
New CSRs and the QA Question
The other day I received an email from a subscriber asking about my thoughts on how to transition new employees into the Quality program. For every Customer Service Representative (CSR) there is a period of training prior to getting on the phones to work with customers. Well, let me say that for most CSRs there is some kind of ...
Podcast: Motivation & Your Call Center’s QA Program
Service Quality Central has entered the world of podcasting! Enjoy Tom’s very first podcast as he takes a few minutes to consider the importance of exploring the motivations behind your call center’s quality ...
