Quarterly Publication of the Quality Assurance & Training Connection
Making the Case for a Quality Standards Definitions Document (QSDD)
By Deelee Freeman, Call Center Training Associates
I don’t know about you, but before I “sign up” for something that is time consuming and will require a lot of effort and resources, I want to fully understand its value — both to my call center and to the company. So if the thought of creating a Quality Standards Definitions Document (QSDD) for your company sounds like more trouble than it’s worth, hopefully this article will change your mind.
Let’s consider the big picture first. As a call center supervisor, my primary responsibility is to manage and improve the performance of my agents so they are better informed and skilled to provide the best possible service to our customers. One way of doing this is to follow these five basic steps of Performance Management:
- Define what is “healthy.”
- Gather data about current performance.
- Diagnose and categorize the situation.
- Apply the proper intervention.
- Monitor behaviors and follow up as needed.
The first step in this Performance Management process is to define the performance expectations—what we call “healthy.” In a call center, this is the description of all the things agents need to do to provide that best possible service. We want to have performance standards that are observable, measurable, and under the agent’s control. Most call centers have no problem identifying a list of quantitative performance standards, ones that can be easily tracked and measured from data provided by the ACD (Automatic Call Distributor) such as AHT (average handle time), ACW (after call work), ASA (average speed of answer), and number of calls handled, just to name a few. But what about performance standards for quality?
I suspect most of you have a quality monitoring program in place, complete with a call evaluation form that lists skills for quality specialists to evaluate when reviewing a recorded call. For many centers, this is where it ends. And the problem with this is that the quality evaluation criteria are not uniformly understood or applied consistently by its users (supervisors, quality specialists, team leads, and trainers) or its recipients…the agents! That’s why you need a comprehensive, detailed description of every single item on your quality evaluation form. It’s your reference tool filled with definitions, explanations and sample scenarios designed to make quality less ambiguous and subject to individual interpretation and more an objective measure of agent performance.
Creating your Call Center’s QSDD
Just to re-cap, the Quality Standards Definition Document is a detailed description of each behavior, skill or performance standard that appears on a quality monitoring evaluation form. Each definition states WHAT, WHEN, HOW and describes the related center GOAL(s). Let’s take a look at a few examples in an opening section of a call.
- Verifies customer address and phone number
- How? Ask customer for address and check information against Customer Account Screen. If different, update system before proceeding with call.
- When? During the opening of the call, following the greeting.
- Related center goal: To ensure company has correct contact points for future billing and marketing.
- Offers assistance
- How? Offering assistance is when you ask the caller to explain the reason(s) for their call. Examples: “Mr. Smith, how may I help you?” OR “How may I assist you today?”
- When? Once you have obtained the caller’s name and account information and verified information in CRM, offer assistance so the caller knows you are ready to listen to their reason for calling. This may also be a good time to use the customer name to help personalize the call and begin building a relationship.
- Related Center Goal:
- Call control: Offering assistance is a technique to transition the call from the opening/greeting to the discovery/identification. It allows you to control the pace of the call, taking the lead through questioning.
- Ownership: Offering assistance is the first step to taking ownership for the call and building trust.
- Expresses willingness to assist
- How? Stating your desire and intent to help the caller with their service inquiry. This is another opportunity to use the customer’s name, making you sound more sincere. Examples: “Pamela, I’d be glad to help you with that.” OR “I’d be happy to take care of that for you today.”
- When? Once the caller has finished explaining his/her issue and reason for the call, this is the time when you reassure him/her that you are the right person to handle the problem and take care of his/her need.
- Related Center Goal:
- Customer relations: As you express a willingness to assist and call ownership, you begin to build trust with callers by assuring them that you are confident in your ability to resolve their issues and handle their stated needs.
- Customer retention: When callers sense your willingness to help and are not made to feel like they are a nuisance or an interruption to your day, they WANT to do business with you. And remember, YOU are the company in their eyes. This ensures their loyalty where they are less likely to take their business to the competitors.
Keeping your QSDD Up-to-date
The usefulness of your QSDD is only as good as your efforts to keep it current and relevant to your business. Assign an “owner“ who is responsible for updating quality definitions once changes and/or enhancements are approved. These will usually be discussed and decided on during calibration sessions. Keep your QSDD saved to a company intranet location or knowledge base rather than distributing hard copies where it’s likely that “old” versions will be left around. Plus, it’s just good practice to keep it “green“ whenever possible. Send out an “updated QSDD” message to all users with the page number and definitions # ID whenever changes are made so everyone knows they need to access the document and review the updates. It is imperative that you hold agents accountable for incorporating changes in their customer interactions, none of this “well, I didn’t know I was supposed to…” Create an index log of changes made to QSDD that includes date, quality section and behavior/skill updated.
A Summary of QSDD Benefits
Everyone with a role in providing support to agents and call center service benefits from a QSDD. Let’s take a look at a few groups in particular. Agents can use the QSDD as a resource that provides call scenarios and examples of recommended responses. They’ll have a place to learn more about how best to handle customer situations. This empowers them to take charge of their own learning and development. Finally, agents will see how their performance contributes to the call center and company goals.
Supervisors benefit from a QSDD as it improves calibration, consistency and fairness. As call evaluators are reading from the same “sheet of music,” there is less room for individual interpretation. And this consistency in evaluation leads to consistency in feedback and coaching points to agents. Ultimately, your customers will receive better, more consistent service! And in the end, this is really what it’s all about.
The training department also benefits from the QSDD since it helps them to incorporate the most up-to-date quality performance standards in their new hire training programs.
So, as you see there is an incredible up-side to putting together a QSDD in your call center.
Deelee Freeman has been providing call center training and consulting services; human resources and quality assurance implementation for over 25 years. She may be reached at dfreeman@callcentertrainingassociates.com.
Quarterly Publication of the Quality Assurance & Training Connection
Making the Case for a Quality Standards Definitions Document (QSDD)
By Deelee Freeman, Call Center Training Associates
I don’t know about you, but before I “sign up” for something that is time consuming and will require a lot of effort and resources, I want to fully understand its value — both to my call center and to the company. So if the thought of creating a Quality Standards Definitions Document (QSDD) for your company sounds like more trouble than it’s worth, hopefully this article will change your mind.
Let’s consider the big picture first. As a call center supervisor, my primary responsibility is to manage and improve the performance of my agents so they are better informed and skilled to provide the best possible service to our customers. One way of doing this is to follow these five basic steps of Performance Management:
- Define what is “healthy.”
- Gather data about current performance.
- Diagnose and categorize the situation.
- Apply the proper intervention.
- Monitor behaviors and follow up as needed.
The first step in this Performance Management process is to define the performance expectations—what we call “healthy.” In a call center, this is the description of all the things agents need to do to provide that best possible service. We want to have performance standards that are observable, measurable, and under the agent’s control. Most call centers have no problem identifying a list of quantitative performance standards, ones that can be easily tracked and measured from data provided by the ACD (Automatic Call Distributor) such as AHT (average handle time), ACW (after call work), ASA (average speed of answer), and number of calls handled, just to name a few. But what about performance standards for quality?
I suspect most of you have a quality monitoring program in place, complete with a call evaluation form that lists skills for quality specialists to evaluate when reviewing a recorded call. For many centers, this is where it ends. And the problem with this is that the quality evaluation criteria are not uniformly understood or applied consistently by its users (supervisors, quality specialists, team leads, and trainers) or its recipients…the agents! That’s why you need a comprehensive, detailed description of every single item on your quality evaluation form. It’s your reference tool filled with definitions, explanations and sample scenarios designed to make quality less ambiguous and subject to individual interpretation and more an objective measure of agent performance.
Creating your Call Center’s QSDD
Just to re-cap, the Quality Standards Definition Document is a detailed description of each behavior, skill or performance standard that appears on a quality monitoring evaluation form. Each definition states WHAT, WHEN, HOW and describes the related center GOAL(s). Let’s take a look at a few examples in an opening section of a call.
- Verifies customer address and phone number
- How? Ask customer for address and check information against Customer Account Screen. If different, update system before proceeding with call.
- When? During the opening of the call, following the greeting.
- Related center goal: To ensure company has correct contact points for future billing and marketing.
- Offers assistance
- How? Offering assistance is when you ask the caller to explain the reason(s) for their call. Examples: “Mr. Smith, how may I help you?” OR “How may I assist you today?”
- When? Once you have obtained the caller’s name and account information and verified information in CRM, offer assistance so the caller knows you are ready to listen to their reason for calling. This may also be a good time to use the customer name to help personalize the call and begin building a relationship.
- Related Center Goal:
- Call control: Offering assistance is a technique to transition the call from the opening/greeting to the discovery/identification. It allows you to control the pace of the call, taking the lead through questioning.
- Ownership: Offering assistance is the first step to taking ownership for the call and building trust.
- Expresses willingness to assist
- How? Stating your desire and intent to help the caller with their service inquiry. This is another opportunity to use the customer’s name, making you sound more sincere. Examples: “Pamela, I’d be glad to help you with that.” OR “I’d be happy to take care of that for you today.”
- When? Once the caller has finished explaining his/her issue and reason for the call, this is the time when you reassure him/her that you are the right person to handle the problem and take care of his/her need.
- Related Center Goal:
- Customer relations: As you express a willingness to assist and call ownership, you begin to build trust with callers by assuring them that you are confident in your ability to resolve their issues and handle their stated needs.
- Customer retention: When callers sense your willingness to help and are not made to feel like they are a nuisance or an interruption to your day, they WANT to do business with you. And remember, YOU are the company in their eyes. This ensures their loyalty where they are less likely to take their business to the competitors.
-
Keeping your QSDD Up-to-date
The usefulness of your QSDD is only as good as your efforts to keep it current and relevant to your business. Assign an “owner“ who is responsible for updating quality definitions once changes and/or enhancements are approved. These will usually be discussed and decided on during calibration sessions. Keep your QSDD saved to a company intranet location or knowledge base rather than distributing hard copies where it’s likely that “old” versions will be left around. Plus, it’s just good practice to keep it “green“ whenever possible. Send out an “updated QSDD” message to all users with the page number and definitions # ID whenever changes are made so everyone knows they need to access the document and review the updates. It is imperative that you hold agents accountable for incorporating changes in their customer interactions, none of this “well, I didn’t know I was supposed to…” Create an index log of changes made to QSDD that includes date, quality section and behavior/skill updated.
A Summary of QSDD Benefits
Everyone with a role in providing support to agents and call center service benefits from a QSDD. Let’s take a look at a few groups in particular. Agents can use the QSDD as a resource that provides call scenarios and examples of recommended responses. They’ll have a place to learn more about how best to handle customer situations. This empowers them to take charge of their own learning and development. Finally, agents will see how their performance contributes to the call center and company goals.
Supervisors benefit from a QSDD as it improves calibration, consistency and fairness. As call evaluators are reading from the same “sheet of music,” there is less room for individual interpretation. And this consistency in evaluation leads to consistency in feedback and coaching points to agents. Ultimately, your customers will receive better, more consistent service! And in the end, this is really what it’s all about.
The training department also benefits from the QSDD since it helps them to incorporate the most up-to-date quality performance standards in their new hire training programs.
So, as you see there is an incredible up-side to putting together a QSDD in your call center.
Deelee Freeman has been providing call center training and consulting services; human resources and quality assurance implementation for over 25 years. She may be reached at dfreeman@callcentertrainingassociates.com.
QATC members can join Deelee for the 2020 Quality Excellence Web Seminar Series at no charge! There are two sessions left in the series noted below. Go to QATC.org for more information.
QATC members can join Deelee for the 2020 Quality Excellence Web Seminar Series at no charge! There are two sessions left in the series noted below. Go to QATC.org for more information.
| Fundamentals of Quality Monitoring | 2020</span |
|---|---|
| Call Calibration: The Path to Consistency in Quality Monitoring Call calibration is a process whereby quality analysts and supervisors evaluate a single call, measure the variance and reconcile the differences. Call centers who are well-calibrated experience greater overall consistency in quality and service to their customers. In this session, you will learn the six key decision points for creating an effective calibration program, how to measure your calibration efforts, as well as the best practices for conducting productive calibration sessions. |
June 25 1:00pm CDT |
| Call Coaching Fundamentals: Preparation and Delivery of Impactful Feedback You can have the most advanced quality recording technology, evaluation and analytical tools, but if you are not delivering impactful call coaching, you will continue to fall short in providing reliable high-quality service to your customers. This session provides practical suggestions to 1). Create a coaching plan; 2). Deliver feedback and 3). Follow-up with continued support. You will learn three specific approaches to call coaching aimed to motivate and develop behaviors required to meet process requirements and create a satisfying, memorable customer experience. |
July 23 1:00pm CDT |