Customer Service Quality Assurance

Customer Service Quality Assurance Checklist

Creating a customer service audit checklist can help your agents ensure they're offering a consistent, positive experience to callers every time they pick up the phone. The exact items on your customer service checklist will vary depending on your industry and the types of calls your agents typically deal with (e.g., technical support vs pre-sales questions), but there are a few fundamentals that you should always make sure your agents cover.

Again, the exact items on your customer service checklist will never be the same as another organization's checklist, but there are some items that you should consider including. For instance, some best practices that you might want your agents to follow throughout the call include pausing the call recording if a customer is about to share sensitive information or muting themselves while the customer is speaking.

It's also important to remember that properly training your agents on each of these elements goes beyond simply creating a checklist. You should thoroughly walk your agents through your company's expectations regarding tone of voice, language, greetings, security protocols, and various regulations (like letting the caller know they're being recorded).1 This training should be structured, and it should be provided to every agent at the start of their tenure and repeated at least once a year to keep them on the right track.

Quality Assurance in a Call Center

What does quality assurance in a call center actually look like? It depends on your company's standards for customer satisfaction. For most customer service call centers, certain metrics must be upheld to ensure customers are treated with respect and end the phone call feeling pleased with the service they received.

Aside from coming to a resolution, customers expect your agents to get to that resolution in a certain amount of time. Customers also don't like sitting on hold for too long, so they expect their calls to be answered promptly. Likewise, customers typically don't appreciate being transferred, especially if it means additional wait times.2 All these factors should be considered when determining what customer satisfaction looks like for your team.

While your agents certainly won't be able to conduct an "ideal call" every time they pick up the phone, setting realistic metrics and educating your agents on the outcome you'd like them to achieve with each phone call will help them provide a consistently positive experience.

Importance of Assurance in Customer Service

The importance of quality assurance in customer service goes far beyond internal metrics. While quality assurance can have a direct impact on how many deals you close or how many customers you retain, it can also have a far more widespread and lasting impact on the success and reputation of your company. For instance, if your agents consistently take too long to resolve customer issues or don't resolve them before a customer hangs up, that can negatively impact the overall customer experience and how people perceive your brand.

Ultimately, even if you're providing fantastic products and services, your agents are the representatives of your company, and a bad interaction with one of them could sour your company's reputation for good in the eyes of a disgruntled caller. Only a fraction of consumers actually reach out to a company when they have a bad experience, so training your agents to turn that experience around could not only save the account but also prevent bad reviews and complaints on social media. Most companies know all too well that negative feedback has far more impact on brand perception than positive reviews.

While your agents have little control over who calls them or how upset a customer might be when they decide to call, your agents are in total control over how they respond in any given situation. However, as a company, you also need to take responsibility and arm your agents with the proper training and resources so they're prepared for difficult situations, especially if an irate customer calls in and gives them little information to solve the problem.

As you track and review metrics over time, both at a team and individual level, you may begin to see patterns in how a particular agent handles difficult phone calls. If you find that an agent is consistently struggling to meet your target metrics, it's always a good idea to reach out and offer additional training and support. Listening to their call recordings and providing direct feedback is also valuable in preparing them to do better the next time they find themselves with a similar call.

Empathy and Assurance Statements for Customer Service

When it comes to achieving and upholding high standards of customer service, one of the most important aspects you can tackle is the use of empathy and assurance statements. Also known as acknowledgment statements, these are words and phrases you can teach your agents to use to demonstrate that they're listening, that they care about your customer's problem, and that they're working with the customer, not against them.

Coming up with your own unique examples of assurance statements for customer service based on your industry, company, and solutions can help your agents learn how to deal with many scenarios effectively. These statements are particularly useful when putting irate customers at ease, so your agents can work with the caller to come to a resolution.

While assurance statements are ultimately only a small part of achieving customer satisfaction and supporting an outstanding customer experience, they nevertheless have an important role to play, so make sure you incorporate them into your training program.

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