Constant customer service feedback is the most efficient way to improve agents’ performance. So customer service reviews have become a common practice for all ambitious teams to include in their support QA process.
Over the years at Klaus, we’ve talked to many support teams who are looking for the best ways to boost their quality. In this article we answer the most common FAQs that crop up.
? Start here if you’re looking to impurrove your QA program! ?
What are customer service conversation reviews?
Internal quality reviews are a systematic way to assess how well your agents’ responses meet your standards. Reviews are an integral part of the customer service quality assurance process, helping you spot and improve upon weaknesses in process and performance.
Just like with code review for software engineers or editorial processes for writers, the goal of customer service reviews is to have an extra pair of eyes to read and provide feedback for improvements.
Sometimes agents are reviewing each other’s interactions (peer-to-peer), sometimes a manager or QA specialist conducts internal reviews to provide feedback.
Why should my support team conduct quality reviews?
Conversation reviews are the most efficient means of improving your support quality. Internal assessments pinpoint your team’s areas of growth and, with constant feedback, help your agents become better at what they do.
Here are the main benefits of including conversation reviews in your support QA process:
- Gain control over your support quality: find your team’s knowledge gaps and provide actionable feedback that helps your agents boost their performance.
- Bring consistency into your support interactions: analyze your team’s conversations across all channels to make sure that customers always get excellent treatment, regardless of the agent approached or platform used.
- Build team coherence: knowing that all agents are held to the same bar makes the entire team work harder towards the same goal.
- Track and report your team’s progress: conversation reviews allow you to keep an eye on your Internal Quality Score (IQS) and notice any changes in your support quality that need your immediate attention.
Conversation reviews provide accurate insight into how well your support team is performing. While customer-based metrics like CSAT, CES, and NPS reflect how satisfied your customers are with your product and services, IQS – the metric of conversation reviews – gives you an internal perspective on the quality of your support.
Read more about why CSAT is not enough here.
Which support interactions should I review?
Most support teams analyze only the conversations that customers have rated negatively to understand what went wrong. However, that doesn’t give you a complete picture of how your team is doing.
To get an overview of the quality of your customer service, you should review your interactions based on the following principles:
- Look into the interactions that have been rated by your customers. Analyze why your team received negative ratings but pay attention to those conversations that received positive feedback, too. There’s a lot you can learn in both cases.
- Analyze the most complex conversations. Our Complexity Filter shows the conversations which consist of more than just a quick back-and-forth. Looking into these conversations will give you an overview of where customers (and maybe agents) are struggling.
- Go through the interactions you’ve had with your churned customers. This can give you valuable insight into the reasons why people unsubscribe from your services or stop buying from you.
Top tip:
Which rating categories should I use in my scorecard?
As the goal of customer service reviews is to track how well your team is performing against your internal quality standards, there isn’t a single scorecard that suits all companies’ needs. Your rubric should reflect your company’s customer service goals and values.
However, we’ve done some research on the most popular rating categories amongst all Klaus users as well as specifically amongst large support teams. The results of these studies can give you some ideas and inspiration for developing your own scorecard.
62% of all Klaus users rate their interactions in the following categories:
- Correctness and completeness of the solution;
- Empathy and tone expressed in support interactions;
- Accuracy in product knowledge.
In addition to that, “Adherence to internal processes” made it into the list of most popular quality criteria for large support teams with more than 25 agents.
If you’re setting up conversation reviews for the first time, you can start with 2-4 basic rating categories and iterate as you go. Your quality standards may change over time, so it’s best to keep your rubric flexible.
When should I switch from spreadsheets to a review tool?
Customer service review tools exist to make support teams’ internal feedback processes easier, faster, and more enjoyable by doing most of the tedious managerial work.
Smaller teams might find that spreadsheets are enough for them, but a manual process is in no way scalable and details may slip through the cracks.
Reasons to use customer service quality assurance software:
- Teams who are growing
Maintaining your own spreadsheets and formulas can be quite complex and time-consuming, especially so with a growing team. Tools help you scale, automate, and track feedback and improvements. - Teams who want to save time
Managers don’t want to spend energy and time on admin (neither do agents!). Copy/pasting tickets, deciding which conversations to review, finding which areas need coaching – this is all a whole lot easier with dedicated tools.
We’ve seen companies reduce 70% of their support QA time since they’ve switched from spreadsheets to Klaus.
The bottom line is that you will get a lot more out of your support QA process if you use a tool to help. From coaching teams to finding the right conversations to review, it is all a lot easier when you have a solution that works.
Why choose Klaus?
Klaus is a customer service review tool built by support folks for support folks.
Here’s how we make QA efficient and enjoyable:
- Seamlessly integrates with all popular help desk solutions (Intercom, Zendesk, Help Scout, etc.) and pulls support interactions automatically in for review.
- Custom scorecards allow you to create rating criteria that suit your team’s needs.
- AI tools (Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning) to automate the process and help you find the right conversations to review.
- Slack and email notifications make sure your agents always know about the feedback they’ve received.
- Coaching features so you can use the best examples in feedback sessions and help your team learn (after all, reviews mean nothing if they don’t help you improve!).
- Easy reporting and data tracking to help you keep an eye on your team’s performance and immediately notice any changes that need your attention.
Klaus is a universal tool for all quality-oriented customer service teams, used by small and large teams alike. Here are a few examples of how companies are using it:
- Rentman keeps up their CSAT score of 96%
- Livestorm maintains excellent standards through hypergrowth
- Wistia uses peer reviews to align team response
- Dreem boosts CSAT by 10%
What other questions do you have about customer service quality, reviews, kittens, panthers, or life in general?
Join our Quality Tribe – a community for customer service professionals.
