5 Tips for Building a Call Center Quality Assurance Scorecard

Quality assurance (QA) scorecards are used in call centers to manage and monitor an agents’ progress. QA scorecards provide agents with the essential feedback they need to deliver the best customer service possible. QA scorecards are based on a pre-determined set of criteria that is used to evaluate the effectiveness of each phone call. With this information, managers can also use QA scorecards to determine trends, focus on high-quality calls, and identify any areas that require extra training.

A call center quality assurance scorecard is an integral part of any successful team. Your team will have a much richer understanding of what is expected of them and what steps they can take to achieve it. Several elements are analyzed on a QA scorecard including agent responsiveness, understanding, attitude, problem-solving skills, and follow-up analytics. The ability to track your agent’s performance across these parameters will allow you to reduce operational costs, motivate your agents and, in turn, improve internal processes.

Below is an outline of five useful tips you can use to build an effective call center quality assurance scorecard system for you and your team.

1. Create Separate Scorecards for Different Platforms

First, consider what active platforms or channels your call center has. Most call centers have multiple platforms that need to be differentiated when arranged in scorecards to ensure the right data is measured. Different platforms could include live web chat, telephone representation, email, and social media.

Each platform will dictate how your agents handle customers and what skills are being tapped into. For this reason, it’s a wise idea to create distinct scorecards that are specific to each channel you have available. A web chat quality assurance scorecard should be unique to scorecards that measure telephone, email or, other services. Think about what aspects make each channel successful, and use this to form your unique channel scorecards.

2. Identify What Works and What Doesn’t

When building an effective quality assurance scorecard, you’ll need to have a good grasp of the variables that impact your agent’s performance for the good, and for the worse. These could be things like an agent’s attitude and tone, handling times, responsiveness, level of understanding, occupancy, and dial transfer rates. Such factors will influence how the customer behaves and reacts toward the agent, in turn, determining your team’s overall numbers and generated leads.

Once you have a good handle on any potential variables, you’ll want to integrate them into aspects of your scorecard. Use these factors as points to evaluate your agents on in your quality assurance scorecards. If you find an agent’s tonality is a major driver of success, arrange a separate section for it on scorecards. Include useful points that help the agent understand the overall vision. For the tonality example, try including points on the pitch, direction, or quality. This will not only help the agent improve, but it will also help managers break down their team’s performance and success.

3. Identify KPIs & Use Them to Set Objectives

Next, establish your key performance indicators (KPIs) that will be used to assess progress. Using the points on your QA scorecard, you can select KPIs based on specific consumer behaviors. Once selected, you can use KPIs to observe and monitor the performance of your team. However, it is worth noting that KPIs are independent of the determining variables you found previously. These influential variables should be used as a guide to form your KPIs, given the rich customer insights it offers. In any case, try monitoring any dubious KPIs that are unclear or vague.

Once you have defined KPIs for each channel in your call center, you can go about setting objectives for each. Every team needs a goal, especially in a call center incentive program. Start by determining an overarching goal for the team, and next break it down into smaller, attainable goals that can be tackled each week. Each goal should pertain to a KPI so that everyone is on track to success. This stage of building a call center quality assurance scoreboard may see you refining the points you defined prior. You will need highly specific goals to achieve your objectives, all of which should be reflected in your QA scoreboard.

4. Provide Constructive Feedback Wherever Possible

Feedback is a highly effective tool to refine and improve an individual’s procedure in a call center. Providing feedback based on a customer’s direct experience, thoughts, and opinions is not only efficient, but it should also be treasured since it’s from a primary source.

Ensure you are collecting as much feedback from your customers as possible to help your agents build an impressive quality assurance scorecard. In today’s digital age, collecting this type of feedback from customers is fast, quick, and seamless. With this right at your fingertips, it would be silly to let this resource go past without maximizing its potential for you and your team.

5. Consistently Revise & Update Your Quality Assurance Scoreboard

Make sure your call center QA scorecard is relevant, valid, and optimized. You will need to regularly update your scorecards to ensure all three of these pillars are met. Managers will need to devise a plan on when they are going to evaluate the effectiveness of their scorecards, and then update it based on their findings. It’s also a good idea to map out what your team’s needs are before you go about adjusting any scorecards so you can optimize them accordingly.

How frequently this is carried out will depend on your industry. Some update their scorecards annually, while others prefer an adjustment every 2-3 months. As long as you are aware that your call center’s scorecard will require regular reviews, it is up to you to decide when a good time to conduct this is.

Final Thoughts

Building an effective call center quality assurance scorecard system for your team doesn’t have to be a painstaking process! With this information, you’ll be able to seamlessly monitor and track your agents’ performance. Separating out each channel in your call center is the first major step to success. Next, identify what influential factors are working for your agents, and what aren’t. Use these points to frame your scorecards as well as define your KPIs. Set realistic objectives and regularly update your scorecards to ensure you are on track and hitting targets every time.