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Shape Up Quality Monitoring by Shipping It Out By Greg Levin
A couple of years ago, National City Mortgage's call center took its monitoring program to the next level -- by getting rid of it. No, they didn't trash their recording system nor set their monitoring forms ablaze, nor did they cast aspersions at calibration or vehemently denounce the very idea of quality. They simply handed the monitoring process over to a third-party expert. And that has made all the difference. "[They] perform our quality monitoring functions with so many value-added efficiencies there is no way we could save money by performing the functions ourselves," says Alan Avery, divisional manager of National City Mortgage's Preferred Lending Center. And it isn't just about saving time and money -- it's about freeing up call center's supervisors to focus squarely on the core competencies that drive improved performance and customer satisfaction. As Drew Chuba, national sales and marketing manager for the Lending Center, explains, "Instead of spending 8 out of 10 quality monitoring hours searching for, locating, listening to and scoring calls, and then spending just two hours on actual coaching, developing and improving core competencies, now we literally spend 100 percent of our quality monitoring time on improving core competencies. This 80 percent efficiency gain goes right to the bottom line -- because now it takes weeks to identify, coach and improve performance instead of months." National City Mortgage isn't the only company experiencing big benefits from outsourcing some or all of its monitoring functions. The fact is, QM outsourcing is emerging as a hot trend among call centers that are eager to dazzle customers with quality service/support, but that may not have the expertise or resources to create or sustain a full-fledged quality monitoring program in house. Many QM outsourcing clients are new call centers that cannot justify the hardware, software and per-seat costs associated with many quality monitoring systems, and/or whose managerial and supervisory staff may not have sufficient experience with monitoring agent-customer interactions. Other QM outsourcing clients are centers that, after steady or rapid growth, found themselves more than just a bit behind the monitoring eight ball. This is not uncommon, according to the ICMI Monitoring Study III, conducted last year; 41.7% of study respondents indicated that those conducting the monitoring in their call centers did not have enough time to provide effective monitoring and feedback. That was the case at National City Mortgage, which saw their three regional call centers grow from 50 agents to more than 120 during the 2001-2003 refinance boom. With the centers struggling to complete call observations and provide critical coaching in a timely manner, outsourcing the monitoring function became an easy decision, says Chuba. "If [outsourcers] can perform this valuable service equal to or better than we can, scale with us and help us to manage costs -- it's a no-brainer."
Inside QM OutsourcingThe decision may not be quite so cut and dry at every call center, but most will agree that the topic is at least worthy of further exploration. Let's take a closer look at the key aspects and benefits associated with QM outsourcing.
Time and Timeliness. QM outsourcers do not manage call centers; they aren't faced with recruiting, hiring, training and retention challenges, nor must they master the art and science of forecasting and scheduling. The sole focus of QM outsourcers is quality monitoring. Where call centers that fail to find time to effectively monitor agents in-house suffer no formal penalty (though often suffer from poor performance), QM outsourcers that fail to complete their monitoring duties go out of business. Thus, QM outsourcers ensure that they have time to not only carry out comprehensive call observations for clients, but also to deliver meaningful and actionable feedback on agent performance to the call center -- within hours of the actual observation. Reputable QM agencies, like Sage Advantage, teleXpertise (used by National City Mortgage) and BPA Worldwide can guarantee to conduct monitoring sessions based on the schedule chosen by their clients, with customized reports and feedback -- including agent and center-wide strengths and weaknesses, coaching recommendations, and comparisons to competitors -- available online almost immediately. Objectivity. The success of a call center quality monitoring initiative hinges largely on how accepting agents are of it. Should agents sense any favoritism and subjectivity in the rating of calls and delivery of feedback -- which is not uncommon in centers where agents are monitored by their own supervisor or manager -- all efforts to improve performance may be wasted. Because QM outsourcers do not work closely with clients' agents on a daily basis, and thus rarely form personal opinions of staff, it is easy for them to objectively evaluate each call based solely on the performance criteria and metrics determined by the client. Such an increase in perceived objectivity is one of the key reasons why Southern Company -- one of the largest electric utilities in the U.S. -- has enjoyed such success with its QM outsourcing arrangement with Sage Advantage. "The support center employees overwhelmingly stated that they preferred an outside person listening to their calls so that personal information was not an issue and fairness was perceived to be more likely," says one of the managers of Southern Company's Information Technology Customer Support Center (ITCSC). This certainly is not to suggest that agent-supervisor/team leader interaction is eliminated in centers using third-party monitoring specialists. Supervisors and team leaders still deliver the feedback provided by the outsourcer to the agent, and often add their own comments (after listening to a recording of the observed call). Supervisors/team leaders also provide necessary coaching and training based on the monitoring feedback, and work closely with agents to help them develop appropriate action plans. Calibration. Consistency, like objectivity, is an essential factor influencing agent acceptance of and enthusiasm toward quality monitoring. Without consistent rating of observed calls over time, agents will begin to doubt the validity of the scores and feedback they receive -- resulting in poor morale and minimal performance improvement. That's why the top QM outsourcers hold frequent calibration sessions, where monitoring specialists working with the same client listen to several recorded calls as a group and discuss why and how they would rate the agent's performance in each case. (In call centers where monitoring has been outsourced but where supervisors still occasionally conduct call observations, the center's supervisors often participate in calibration sessions with the outsourcer.) Such sessions, says Marcia Hicks, senior consultant with Kowal Associates, "remove variation in the way performance criteria are interpreted from person to person....When calibration is achieved, it will not matter who did the monitoring and the scoring -- the outcome will be the same." To further ensure such consistent monitoring practices and outcomes, Sage Advantage not only conducts ongoing calibration, but also has an online "audit-request" process in place that enables clients to have certain agent interactions carefully re-evaluated. Scalability. Rapid call center growth can adversely affect a call center's quality monitoring program. The center's existing monitoring system may not be ideally suited for the increased volume, and supervisors -- already hard pressed to fulfill their monitoring/coaching responsibilities -- often can't handle the burden, and may lack the budget to add more supervisory staff. QM outsourcers have the unique ability to scale up, or down, to seamlessly meet the often fluctuating needs of their clients. Call centers needn't permanently invest in and implement any new technology, nor are they forced to hire additional people who, may only be needed to cover seasonal spikes in volume. Take National City Mortgage, for instance. When they had to nearly triple their staff during the 2001-2003 refinance boom, the company wasn't sure how long the boom and their success would last, and thus didn't want to shell out beaucoup bucks for new monitoring tools and supervisory staff. "Permanent solutions to temporary explosive growth simply aren't practical," says National City's Avery. "Scalability in all facets of the business is critical to the up-cycle and inevitable down-cycle success of the business. National City's QM outsourcing decision was initially intended to be a temporary solution, but with the continued growth of the call center -- and the increased monitoring efficiency and effectiveness -- the company continues use teleXpertise to carry out its quality monitoring functions.
Add VOC to QM OutsourcingAn emerging trend in quality monitoring -- whether outsourced or not -- is gathering direct customer feedback on agent interactions, and incorporating those comments/ratings into agents' quality scores.
Most of the top QM outsourcers offer this "Voice of the Customer" (VOC) component as an optional part of their monitoring services. Call center clients would be wise to take advantage of that option, say Mike Desmarais and Sarah Kennedy of research and consulting firm Service Quality Measurement Group (SQM). In a recent white paper, Desmarais and Kennedy state that quality monitoring is most effective when it includes "the process of using data from real customer surveys that can be fed back to the representatives to improve call quality....[This] is most effective when implemented using third-party telephone surveying." Call center clients that go the VOC route typically have their QM outsourcer conduct two or three traditional monitoring sessions for each agent, and another three or four customer survey sessions for each agent. The former, say Desmarais and Kennedy, are great for measuring quality criteria important to the call center/enterprise, while the latter measures quality issues important to the customer. Most QM outsourcers conduct their VOC surveys within one or two days of the customer's interaction with the agent -- to ensure that the call is still fresh in the customer's mind and that agents receive the feedback as quickly as possible. That feedback, coupled with the monitoring score/feedback provided by the QM outsourcer (and call center supervisor), gives agents -- and the organization -- a much more complete picture of how well they are serving customers. As Kennedy and Desmarais explain, "This improved QA process creates a balance between customer perceived quality and call center perceived quality -- a dimension that has traditionally been missing from most monitoring activities." How QM Outsourcers Capture CallsThere are several methods that outsourcers use to complete their quality monitoring functions. The two most popular are a server-based model and a remote dial-in method.
The server-based model works best for medium to large call centers that already have quality monitoring recording suites in place. These centers typically need more calls evaluated than their internal staff can handle. In this model, a secure virtual private network (VPN) is established between the outsourcer's server and the client's call recording server. With this configuration, the outsourcer has complete access to all of the client's calls and computer screens to allow it to evaluate calls just as the client's internal quality monitoring team would. The remote dial-in model allows the outsourcing firm to dial into the client's phone queues and complete live monitoring sessions. Depending on client demands, these live monitoring calls may also be recorded. The sessions are ideal platforms for client/outsourcer calibration sessions, as well. Many small to medium call centers prefer this mechanism when outsourcing their quality functions. (Source: Jim Garey, teleXpertise) Copyright 2006 CMP Media LLC. All rights reserved. 9/1/06, Issue # 1909, page 42. |