How to Deliver Quality Management and Speech Analytics Benefits

Let us get straight to the point. The convergence of speech analytics technologies and the QM process is transforming the contact centre.

The benefits include a dramatic reduction in costs, time savings for both leadership and agent, an exponentially improved service to the customer, a shot in the arm for employee experience, and a new stream of business efficiency.

The QM function is absolutely critical. It may vary slightly from organisation to organisation, but the fundamental pillars are usually quite similar. We want to ensure a great service as well as security and compliance.

We want to ensure our teams consistently follow a defined Standard Operating Procedure, that they have excellent communication skills, with strong product/service and process knowledge, aligned to the culture or brand of the organisation, as well as remaining compliant.

Phew! It is quite a job, but one that is critical as QM gives us the edge in a hyper-competitive, fickle and high-churn marketplace. If QM and speech analytics are used effectively, you will gain the following five capabilities:

1. The ability to automatically measure results not just actions
2. The ability to automatically focus your attention where it is needed
3. The ability to automatically discover shortfalls in what matters
4. The ability to automatically monitor ongoing performance
5. The ability to automate the sharing of best practice

But how do you unlock them?

1. Measure Results and Not Just Actions

A typical QM process identifies an area that may need improvement. This is logged and, where possible, a remediation process is initiated. This may range from asking for more attention to the matter, through to sharing learning modules or structured training.

A review of the data may be set to investigate whether the agent believes they have improved: did they read the book, watch the YouTube video or attend the course? The real issue is the onus is on the team lead/QM manager to scan calls randomly for indicators of areas where improvement is needed.

They may be lucky and find some. The agent may be lucky and the managers don’t find any. It is all incredibly unfocused and lacking in rigour.

The convergence of speech analytics and QM allows the QM leads to set metrics relating to the improvement areas. They can digitally monitor this by analysing 100 per cent of all the interactions across all channels and set red /amber/green thresholds to alert them to the right output.

2. Focus Your Attention Where It Is Needed

You will have defined areas of interest. These may include first call resolution (FCR), average call handle time (AHT), customer experience (CX), customer satisfaction (C-SAT), product knowledge, soft skills and so on.

Monitoring all the things that matter to the QM lead is a monumental task and impossible to do without a helping hand from technology. In addition, some of the datapoints that are available come from the system of record (i.e. what the agent entered) and may not be a true reflection of FCR or CX.

If you build a stack of metrics that are important to you, then use speech and chat analytics to scan 100 per cent of all calls and chat sessions, you gain an executive eye-in-the-sky dashboard that shows you where your attention should be focused.

In most cases, we see 60 to 70 per cent of staff do not need QM attention, yet they are regularly processed in the same way as those who do. Speech analytics and QM can enable you to allocate 80 per cent of your attention to the 20 per cent who most need it.

3. Discover Shortfalls in What Matters

As the QM metrics are now conversational queries, we are able to set thresholds on all the metrics you need to monitor.

Additionally, these monitor 100 per cent of all interactions, across all channels. QM leaders no longer need to spend hours looking for examples of deviation from the master plan, the system will find the proverbial needle in the haystack across millions of interactions instantly.

4. Monitor Ongoing Performance

If the system does find a potential area for improvement, this needs to be tracked and monitored. The convergence of QM into speech and chat analytics allows QM leaders to automatically set improvement tasks, review dates and attach snippets of the call that has been detected with that area of interest.

You can not only track and monitor until a training note has been read or a video is watched, but you can automatically continue to monitor the performance of the QM metric.

5. Automate the Sharing of Best Practice

Don’t just get the system to look for the bad examples. As you are analysing 100 per cent of all channels, it is easy to find brilliant examples of customer handling: from sales objection handling, to customer service empathy; and from advanced listening skills to great examples of call summary of actions taken.

Then you can use the power of these platforms to share the examples or add them to your showcase library.

Next-gen QM; phew, what a relief.

Author: Guest Author