QUESTION:

I am hiring a bilingual trainer but I am looking externally for this position because I want to bring in some fresh perspective with past experience. In the past, we have always hired our trainers from the call center ranks. As a result, our interview process required the candidates to teach one of the call center processes to a panel for evaluation. An external candidate would obviously not have that knowledge to be able to perform such an activity. Do you have a recommendation for how to interview an external candidate for a training position?

ANSWER:

It can be effective to ask the trainer to teach a short course on something everyone can understand such as how to prepare a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with as much detail and “how to” instruction as possible. Give the person a few minutes to make some notes on what to cover and then ask the person to make the presentation with a flip chart. This can give a pretty good idea of how the trainer thinks and communications without much concern about the content itself.

QUESTION:

I’m inquiring about how to check the quality of the audits of our Quality Analysts. Our department provides audits for our company and we would like some ideas or suggestions for an audit the auditor programs. Do you have any information that could help us?

ANSWER:

The most common ways to audit quality analysts are the following:

Review a subset of calls evaluations used in calibration. Analyze QA’s individual scores in relationship with the standard deviation and average of scores from the group. With this method, you will be able to report findings, for example, of analysts who evaluate apart (either high or low) from the group.

Re-evaluate a sample of QA’s call evaluations. Evaluation checks (or audits) are typically done by a quality manager, one who knows the standards well and has experience applying quality standards to calls. Compare the manager’s evaluation and comments to those of the analyst on a given call(s).

QUESTION:

We are really struggling with “double dinging.” An agent may make a single mistake, but QA may mark the agent off in multiple categories. For example, an agent doesn’t follow proper procedure as they didn’t refer to a policy manual. They are then counted off under “Follows correct procedure” and “Research.” The supervisors don’t feel that we should count an agent off for the same mistake in multiple errors, but there are many times when one mistake not only affects multiple areas of our monitor form, but also the customer! What do you think?

ANSWER:

The short answer is…no double dinging! What you need to do is either: 1) be more specific in your quality standards or 2) narrow your definitions with your current form. Looking at the example you provide, it sounds like what should be contained in the definition of “Follows correct procedure” is the process agents are meant to follow, one of which is to research.

Each agent behavior and/or skill should align to a single defined quality standard. If it is a critical behavior/skill, it should be worth more points indicating it has higher value to the call center and/or company (based on how it impacts your goals). As your supervisors evaluate calls, they need to match the observed behavior with the corresponding quality standard.