What are the most common call center quality issues and how do you prevent them?

When taking calls. Start by knowing your company and learning everything you can. When you speak to a customer, have active listening and sound confident in what you're telling them.

- the best perspective to assess this is the customer’s. It is critical to obtain customer feedback from the experience as this will be more accurate on how best to attack any disconnects.

Compassion for the person you are talking too understanding and clarity. Able to resolve the problem within the call so no other calls need to be made be a good listener. Let the caller vent and calm them down with trying to help them

The most common complaint of phone agents is a variation of 'they (trainers) never covered...' while usually incorrect it doesn't mean that some important items can be covered quickly and not given the detailed coverage required. An effective remedy is using a transition group for associates out of training where the new agents have someone at all times to listen and coach. Don't rush training,

In my experience the best way to improve this area is to allow the agents to grade or apply the grading system to the call with the supervisor or QA grading the call. Let the agent pick one of his calls (so he does not feel the supervisor is picking on him) and let him grade his call on the areas of opportunity. People tend to grade or are more critical of themselves more than any supervisor. It allows them to hear their calls in a different way when they are grading and looking for opportunites vs leadership explaining where they need to improve.

How many times have you called into a contact center and been deeply unimpressed with the agent? I'd say it happens more often than not. This problem is rooted in poor agent training. You must train your agents on soft skills like developing rapport with customers. Train your agents on displaying empathy and understanding after a customer explains a problem to them. If your agents aren't personable, you can almost guarantee that your CX will suffer.

Feedback is the best tool to upskill associates. One-on-one feedback is critical, but needs to enhance the positives and give the agent the opportunity to self assess and list what they see as the greatest need. The other step is, with approval, do group feedback, calls can only be played with the approval of the agents. Encourage positive feedback by all. Agents will learn the best from themselves and their peers

Also, the coaching and call grading and such may lead you to update your training. What is not being communicated as well as it should/could be during initial training? Are you missing a step or need more emphasis on a topic or skill set or CRM? Each part effects the rest.

I was at a place that "upgraded" their CRM to a a new and modern one and our average call times went from 3.5 minutes up to 5.5 minutes. The new CRM was better in so many ways but it required more time and effort to get more out of it. Then they added a new CRM on top and the call times went up another minute. Sure, we got far better data and the process was more complete, but no amount of training would bring our call times down much. You have to account for that in your staffing and budgetary levels and accept it. The calls cost more and took more time but saved time and money on the back end. Personally, I prefer a call center environment where call times are less important than customer satisfaction and one call resolution.

Handle times are one of the measurables that most frustrates agents. Common opinions center in 'with all we have to do on each call, how do they expect us to keep calls so short'. When grading performance, instead of penalizing long calls, reward service level agreement (SLA) adherence, this is one where the carrot is better than a stick, but refresher classes can be focused on increasing efficiency while meeting all handling requirements, set small, achievable goals for improvement towards achieving SLA compliance

I strongly recommend that you do not factor AHT into agent performance. This only encourages agents to rush through calls and will leave your customers left feeling dissatisfied and unheard. Now, that's not to say that AHT isn't important. But there are other ways you can bring down AHT. For example, agents typically spend 3-5 minutes on aftercall work. Implementing a contact center solution that has auto call summaries can drastically reduce agent post-call work and thus, lower AHT.

It is critical in any call center to look at the tools you are using, including your CRM, phones, age and speed of computers, FAQs, and more so as to optimize them and reduce or remove barriers to the CSR getting the info they need in a timely manner and adding the customer info ( notes, sales orders etc ). This affects all the types of quality mentioned. You may even need people from outside the department to assist.

First call resolution rate is by far one of the most important KPIs of a contact center. As a contact center leader, if your contact center has low FCR, you should look inward. The most common reason why a contact center has low FCR is because of inadequate training. Re-evaluate your onboarding and training process and make sure that you are continuously training your agents, especially if your contact center handles complex issues.

First call resolution (FCR) needs to be elevated as the most important SLA measurable. Focus a significant training time to FCR as more calls that are one and done in motive agent performance and customer satisfaction. Feedback focused on how a call could have been turned to FCR should be a part of every meeting.

Many employers make high turnovers a self fulfilling prophecy. They don't want to waste time FULLY training people because they already have high turnover. They don't want to bother assigning seats because its to much work with high turn over. Don't bother giving people virtual or real office space to keep their work notes, cheat sheets or memos but criticize employees for feeling lost, under trained, abandoned to the wolves. New hires go from excited about the advancement possibilities to applying to other companies anxious to get a job somewhere else within 6 months. If you see your own company in these examples, take steps to value the employees you already have. And no, token employee appreciation days don't count.

Kim Wyatt, agree with you, call center positions also have high turnover as they are seen as entry level, with agents correctly being motivated to grown their careers by posting for more challenging roles. To keep talent on the phones, in place advancement should be used, letting agents grow to Subject Matter Experts (SME), assistant managers, Senior Associate (the titles can bar greatly) that are the first line used by agents to have their issues handled.

High absenteeism and turnover screams poor management and lack of employee appreciation. Being a contact center agent is hard enough. If you have micromanagers that nitpick every single KPI, you're destined to have people hating to come to work and looking elsewhere for work. Your leaders should empower your agents and constantly recognize them for their hard work. Create a winning culture and your agents will show up to work!

There are a lot of factors that can drive inconsistent performance, but the most common one is lack of standardization. For every situation, you should have an SOP outlined. If you're finding that your contact center agents are delivering inconsistent performance, evaluate as many calls as you can and figure out where the inconsistencies are, then develop SOPs for those exact situations.

Inconsistency can be driven by burnout, the impact of the monotony of the calls, one day blending to the next. To combat this, have regular, Schuyler off phone times. Team meetings, on going training sessions, round table meeting, skip level meetings, are some of the tools, but also team outings, an off site team lunch, team building activities, group service events, are all ways to keep morale high, which can reduce absenteeism

Get your people trained, give them the tools and authority to do their job, and then get out of the way and let them do it. Stop managing to stats, it doesn’t serve any real purpose and it hinders actual service. If you focus on stats, so too will your staff, and the client will be the one who loses. . . Until your competition scoops them up, at which point, you’ll be the loser. By the way, the competition will be coming for your people, too. And they’ll get them. Lost clients plus lost talent equals double your losses.

Listen to the agents feedback! Show them their opinions, feedback and suggestions are valued and implemented when possible. Include them when policies and procedures are updated. When feedback is touted as anonymous, IT MUST BE! Treat employees like adults. Give them the tools to perform, and the authority needed to resolve issues themselves. Regular recognition, it can be small, have a grab bag of $5 or $10 gift cards that are won as an instant reward for a job well done. Praise in public, correct in private. Little things mean a lot and all positive interactions build self confidence. Senior leadership should be routinely involved in the feedback loop.

One that seems to be left off the list is making sure that agent supervisors have effective coaching skills. In the end, agents take the lead from their direct managers. From my experience, many supervisors use to be successful agents. Remember, what makes a successful agent doesn't necessarily make a successful coach.