Call centers are the frontline of customer interactions, and the quality of these interactions can make or break a company’s reputation. QA programs are crucial for maintaining high standards, but there’s an ongoing debate: Should your QA program focus more on strict call compliance adherence, ensuring every agent follows the script to the letter, or on fostering high customer experience (CX) sentiment, where the emotional connection with the customer is prioritized?
This blog explores the balance between these two critical aspects and why finding the right focus is essential for your call center's success.
What is Call Compliance Adherence?
Call compliance adherence in a call center refers to the practice of following established guidelines, laws, and internal policies during customer interactions. This involves ensuring that agents are fully aware of and adhere to regulatory requirements, industry standards, and company policies.
Call compliance encompasses aspects like privacy measures, script adherence, and transaction accuracy. It's aimed at minimizing legal risks, meeting regulatory demands, and providing a consistent service that reflects the company’s values and commitments.
Examples include:
- Legal Disclosures: Agents must read specific legal statements, like informing customers that a call is being recorded or providing details about terms and conditions.
- Scripted Responses: Agents follow a set script to ensure consistency in how information is communicated, such as offering mandatory upsells or asking required verification questions.
- Data Security Protocols: Ensuring agents follow strict procedures when handling sensitive customer information, like verifying identity before discussing account details or not storing credit card information improperly.
What is Customer Experience Sentiment?
Customer experience sentiment, on the other hand, focuses primarily on the emotional response and overall satisfaction a customer feels towards a company after interacting with its call center.
This sentiment is shaped by multiple factors, including the quality of service, the efficiency of problem resolution, and the interpersonal skills of the agent. High customer experience sentiment can lead to increased customer loyalty, more referrals, and positive reviews, all of which play pivotal roles in a company's success and market growth.
Examples include:
- Empathy and Understanding: An agent actively listens to a customer’s concerns and responds with empathy, acknowledging the customer’s feelings and demonstrating understanding, even if the issue is complex or frustrating.
- Personalization: Tailoring interactions to the individual customer, like remembering past interactions, suggesting relevant products, or addressing them by name to create a more personalized and engaging experience.
- Proactive Problem Solving: Going beyond the script to solve a customer's problem in a way that best meets their needs, even if it means deviating slightly from standard procedures to provide a better experience.
Call Compliance versus CX Sentiment: What is More Important for your QA Program?
When evaluating the effectiveness of a call center's QA program, the debate often centers around two key priorities: call compliance adherence and customer experience (CX) sentiment. Both are crucial in their own right, but determining which should take precedence can be a challenge for call center leaders. Understanding the impact of each on your business can guide you in finding the right balance.
Why is Call Compliance Important for your Call Center’s QA Program?
Call compliance makes sure that all legal and regulatory rules are followed. Adhering to call compliance is not merely a recommendation; it's a necessity. In industries such as healthcare, finance, and telecommunications, legal and regulatory frameworks are strictly enforced to protect consumer rights and data privacy.
For instance, healthcare call centers must comply with HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) to ensure patient information is handled securely and confidentially. Non-compliance can lead to severe legal consequences, including fines, sanctions, and loss of business licenses.
Therefore, integrating rigorous compliance checks into the quality assurance (QA) program of a call center is crucial to safeguard the business against legal risks and to uphold mandatory regulatory standards.
Call compliance also helps maintain the brand’s reputation. The reputation of a brand is significantly influenced by how well its call center operates within the bounds of compliance.
Customers expect a reliable and ethical interaction whenever they contact a call center. If a call center fails to adhere to compliance regulations, it risks public scandals and trust erosion. Negative customer experiences due to non-compliance can quickly escalate into public relations crises, significantly damaging a brand's reputation.
In contrast, consistent adherence to compliance not only fosters trust and loyalty among customers but also elevates the brand's standing in the industry. By ensuring compliance, call centers contribute directly to sustaining and enhancing the business’s reputation.
Why is CX Sentiment Important for your Call Center’s QA Program?
Customer Experience Sentiment (CES) is a critical metric in call centers aiming to provide service that goes beyond mere satisfaction. This focus is rooted in the understanding that a positive customer interaction directly influences the overall perception of the company, which in turn impacts business success.
High customer experience sentiment builds customer loyalty and trust. When customers feel heard and valued, they are more likely to become repeat clients and even brand advocates. Loyalty stems from consistent positive experiences, which are crucial in today's competitive market, where alternatives are readily available. Trust is built through consistent, honest, and supportive communication, turning casual customers into loyal ones.
High CX sentiment also enhances the brand’s image. Strong customer experience not only retains current customers but also attracts new ones. Positive reviews and word-of-mouth referrals are invaluable for a brand's reputation.
Moreover, in the digital age, social media plays a pivotal role wherein a single customer's experience can either enhance or tarnish a brand's public image. Thus, fostering high customer experience sentiment is not merely about satisfying customers but about significantly boosting the brand’s overall image and competitive edge.
Which is More Important?
In deciding which is more important for your QA program, consider the specific goals of your call center. If your industry is heavily regulated, compliance adherence might need to take precedence to avoid legal risks. However, if your focus is on building long-term customer relationships and driving loyalty, a stronger emphasis on CX sentiment may be the better approach.
SQM Group research shows that 84% of call center leaders believe that achieving high customer service is more important than call compliance adherence for your call center QA program.
However, ultimately, the most effective QA programs strike a balance between the two, ensuring that agents meet all necessary compliance standards while still delivering a high-quality, emotionally resonant customer experience. This balance not only protects your business but also enhances customer satisfaction and loyalty, leading to sustainable success.
What is the Best QA Program?
When it comes to improving Customer Satisfaction (Csat), the best QA program to use is a Customer Service QA program which combines call compliance metrics, judged by a QA evaluator, and service quality metrics, judged by a customer via an email or phone survey.
Customer Service QA (CQA) lets the customer judge their own experience with their recent call center interaction. When CQA is implemented effectively, a call center can see up to a 10% improvement in First Call Resolution (FCR). For example, if a call center currently has a 70% FCR rate, a 10% increase would bring them to an 80% FCR rate, which is considered world-class.
Customer Service QA, or CQA, is a comprehensive approach to quality assurance that captures both the customer’s and the organization’s perspectives by integrating customer surveys, QA, and call compliance metrics.
CQA leverages Voice of the Customer (VoC) data to assess call quality, aiming to enhance—not replace—the traditional call monitoring process. While customer feedback is invaluable, it alone can't cover all aspects of call center performance, particularly in areas like compliance and accuracy of information, which customers may not be able to evaluate. Therefore, it's essential for the call center QA team to continue assessing these metrics, potentially with the help of AI tools.
The CQA program operates as a two-part system, combining external VoC evaluations with internal call assessments. Each agent receives a Customer Service QA evaluation scorecard and dashboard reports that integrate results from customer surveys, QA, and call compliance checks.
For example, the mySQM™ QA Score is a 100-point evaluation, where 85% of the points are customer-focused, and 15% are organization-focused, as illustrated in the figure below.
Customer Service QA Evaluation Form — Free Download
How is the mySQM™ QA Score Calculated?
The mySQM™ QA Score is calculated based on three key categories: post-call surveys (40 points), quality assurance (45 points), and call compliance (15 points), totaling 100 points. Of these, 85% of the points are dedicated to customer service delivery, while 15% focus on call compliance. The scoring scale is as follows: Great: 100 points, Good: 90-99, Average: 70-89, Needs Improvement: 50-69, and Unacceptable: 0-49.
This strong emphasis on customer service metrics clearly signals to agents and supervisors that fulfilling customer needs is the top priority. However, if an agent fails to adhere to call compliance, they will receive a score of 0 for their entire mySQM™ QA evaluation.
This shows that adherence to call compliance is mandatory. If an agent does not adhere to call compliance, it could severely harm the call center’s reputation and rapport with its customers. On the other hand, achieving high CX sentiment is seen as something to be praised but not necessarily enforced in the same way as call compliance.