Improving your job performance becomes easier when you have fewer tasks on your plate, which is a given. While achieving this may seem challenging, there is a method that proves to be simpler than hiring additional staff — automated quality management.
Customer service QA automation oils the machine of progress:
- Want your customer service team to improve fast?
- Scared of support quality dipping as you scale?
- Know that technology can do more for you, but you’re unsure how?
Cool, let’s dive into it ⬇️
What is Automated Quality Management (AutoQM)?
Automated Quality Management (or AutoQM) is an advanced process designed to automate a contact center’s quality monitoring. Using tools to help you with, for example, scoring customer conversations and planning valuable coaching sessions, teams can instigate customer satisfaction.
The benefits of automated quality monitoring
AutoQM (sometimes known as AQM) emerges as a way for leaders to understand your contact center employee performance and customers’ frustrations without having to dig into conversations manually.
It’s also the way to let customer service teams tackle weaknesses head-on, and fast.
Consequently, a significant amount of time becomes available for
(a) customer service agents to engage in meaningful conversations with customers,
(b) managers, team leads, and QA specialists to analyze and strategize accordingly.
51% of people leaders say the rise of AI and customer service automation will make leadership more important. Automated quality monitoring serves as the key to unlocking this potential, enabling professionals to excel in their roles by fostering authentic connections and leaving a lasting impact.
And, you know, to take enough coffee breaks.
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Automating quality assurance (conversation discovery, reviews, scores)
Customer service quality assurance involves the systematic monitoring of the quality of customer interactions. By conducting internal quality reviews of customer calls and messages, you can effectively gauge and enhance your team’s performance, as well as optimize the overall support process.
The impact of your customer service quality on your business processes cannot be overstated.
Manual reviews vs customer service QA automation
This title is maybe a little misleading (but hey, it got your attention). We do not recommend that you fully automate customer service quality reviews.
Manual reviews still hold immense value in the customer service quality assurance process. The “human” factor within the feedback loop is irreplaceable – delving into nuanced situations and performing in-depth analysis.
However, relying solely on manual reviews carries inherent risks:
- Limited in scope
On average, only a mere 2% of customer conversations undergo manual review. - Potential bias
Reviewers may unwittingly possess unconscious biases that could influence their evaluations, leading to unfair assessments and decisions. - Lack of scalability
Manual reviews struggle to keep pace with scalability, particularly as customer interaction volumes surge. This can result in delays in providing feedback and hamper efforts to improve customer service.
This is why we recommend using AutoQA to enhance your entire review process.
How customer service QA automation gifts you with 100% coverage and in-depth analysis
Customer service QA automation can help you analyze a large volume of customer interactions – and fast.
Through its automated quality monitoring of support tickets, AutoQA ensures you achieve comprehensive coverage, providing an impartial and thorough overview of your customer conversations.
Customer service QA automation also equips you with a treasure map that you can use to guide you to problem areas. These weak points may otherwise remain buried under the weight of many other support tickets. Direct access to customer conversations where, for example, the agent didn’t reach a solution, or in which the customer expressed frustration, helps you analyze what went wrong and the next steps.
Part of automated quality management is about balancing customer service QA automation with manual effort.
Ok, but what about customer feedback?
To gain genuine insights into how your support is perceived, gathering customer feedback is crucial.
But collecting and analyzing customer feedback manually is a challenging, time-consuming task – especially when personalized outreach gathers the best results.
Fortunately, automated quality monitoring (AutoQM) can come to your rescue. Using automated surveys simplifies the task of swiftly amassing feedback about customer experience shortly after an interaction – this time frame is important.
Harness the potential of automated feedback surveys at crucial junctures along the customer journey. Capture the pulse of customer satisfaction right after onboarding, following a repeat purchase, or post-service interaction.
By cleverly segmenting satisfied and unsatisfied customers, uncover the hidden gems of insights that reveal the trends and reasons behind each customer satisfaction score.
Ways to measure customer feedback
Automated quality management (AutoQM) systems are designed to collect and analyze customer feedback as part of the overall evaluation process. The following types of surveys are the most popular for organizations to understand customer perceptions, and measure their performance in delivering customer-centric customer experience.
CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score): CSAT typically involves asking customers to rate their satisfaction on a scale, such as from 1 to 5 or from very dissatisfied to very satisfied.
CES (Customer Effort Score): CES measures the level of effort customers have to put in to accomplish a task, resolve an issue, or achieve a desired outcome.
NPS (Net Promoter Score): NPS involves asking customers a question like “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend us?” Based on their response, customers are categorized as Promoters (9-10), Passives (7-8), or Detractors (0-6).
Using automated quality monitoring to translate feedback into impactful change
The aim of effective feedback is to highlight areas of improvement, reinforce positive behavior, and address any gaps in agent performance.
By harnessing the combined power of quality assurance reviews and customer feedback surveys, automated quality management empowers you with a wealth of data to enhance your contact center and optimize processes.
Your guide to providing feedback
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Integration and data collection
Set up systems and tools that integrate quality assurance review data and customer feedback survey responses. This can be done by connecting your quality assurance platform, customer feedback management system, and customer service software — or by using Zendesk QA (formerly Klaus) to do all three!
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Data analysis and segmentation
Analyze the collected data to identify patterns, trends, and insights. Segment the feedback based on relevant categories such as specific agents, customer issues, or performance metrics.
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Automated quality management reporting
Develop automated reporting mechanisms that compile the feedback and generate insightful reports. These reports should be tailored to the needs of customer service teams, providing them with clear and concise information.
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Real-time notifications
Implement real-time notification systems that alert customer service teams when new feedback or quality assurance reviews are available. This ensures timely awareness and action.
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Actionable recommendations
Include actionable recommendations or suggestions alongside the feedback reports.
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Performance tracking
One of the most important parts of an automated quality management process (AutoQM) is tracking agent performance. The right tools will help you automatically track the performance of contact centers over time. This allows for ongoing assessment and continuous improvement.
Use this guide to ensure that automated quality monitoring continuously enhances your customer service team’s performance.
The limitations of automated quality management
Always be aware of the three most common pitfalls of automated quality monitoring:
Lack of contextual understanding:
Automated quality monitoring systems may struggle to fully grasp the context and nuances of customer interactions. They might miss the subtleties of tone, emotion, or complex issues, which can impact the accuracy and relevance of evaluations.
Inability to handle complex scenarios:
Automated quality monitoring systems may struggle to handle intricate or unique customer scenarios that require human judgment and decision-making. They may provide generic or inaccurate evaluations when faced with complex situations.
Limited adaptability:
Customer service QA processes typically follow predefined rules and criteria, which might not account for every possible scenario or evolving customer needs. They might not capture the full range of service excellence or account for changing customer expectations.
Well done! You nearly made it to the end of the article
In the grand tapestry of customer service evolution, automated quality management emerges as the undeniable game-changer.
Picture this: no more grappling with mundane manual reviews or sifting through heaps of data. With automated quality monitoring seamlessly integrated into your customer support team operations, you’ll witness efficiency and precision.
Originally published in July 2023; last updated in October 2023.
