This is Quality Monitoring

I recently read a magazine article that asked the question How Do Contact Centers Measure The Patient Experience? and it mentioned twelve various KPIs to use.

The main point of the article was, quote There is no single magic KPI that will offer a clear indicator of a call center's performance or guide your operation to a successful outcome, which could not only benefit from some clarification, it's kind of a bummer.

The 12 KPIs were presented in the following order: Abandonment Rate, Average Handle Time, Customer Effort Score, Customer Satisfaction, Employee Net Promoter Score, Employee Satisfaction, First Call Resolution, Net Promoter Score, Quality Monitoring, Response Time, Service Level and Turnover.

While each of these KPIs has merit, the article was specifically about How To Measure The Patient Experience which means the value of each KPI must be measured by how much it impacts the caller once they place a call to the call center In that regard, not all of the KPIs are equal; some barely impact that experience at all, and this is an important point the article failed to account for.

In fact, of the twelve KPIs listed, one accounts for roughly 90%-95% of the impact on a patient's experience, and the other eleven collectively account for only around 5%-10%.

That KPI is Quality Monitoring, and when handled skillfully, it is the ultimate management tool able to ensure any agent, no matter their skill level or background, offers the highest level of experience and professionalism each day. I will explain how it works.

When a caller places a phone call to a call center, the quality of their experience is almost entirely determined by the conversation they have with the agent who handles the reason for their call. This is The Patient/Customer Experience, and while complex and challenging, it consists of a sizable but finite number of identifiable components that are perfectly manageable in highly specific ways that ensure success.

The role of Quality Monitoring is to dictate how agents behave within these conversations, and when handled properly with a skilled teaching curriculum that takes into account each of the components that define The Patient/Customer Experience, it allows call centers to strictly manage most every word and nuanced tone. Conversely, a curriculum that does not include these components produces far lesser results. Quality Monitoring is a teaching tool defined by the quality and breadth of its teaching content, and this content varies greatly between programs.

But the prevailing narrative is all Quality Monitoring is pretty much the same, defined by how often it tests agents (which matters little), while teaching content is rarely a consideration. This is a huge misconception, because Quality Monitoring is a teaching tool designed to transfer an expert's knowledge directly to an agent's performance, and its monitoring component is just a secondary, behavior-accountability component whose impact outcome is wholly dependent on the quality and range of the teaching content directing the show.

The reason for the misconceptions regarding Quality Monitoring is how the use of scripts, checklists, and speech analytics software have come to define it. Each of these outdated methods offers minimal teaching content and produces disappointing results, greatly lowering the bar of expectations as to what Quality Monitoring can do and creating the perception that Quality Monitoring is just another, average KPI.

Which leads directly to the conclusion There is no single magic KPI that will offer a clear indicator of a call center's performance or guide your operation to a successful outcome.

Thankfully, this is not true.

There is a KPI that offers a clear indicator of a call center's performance. And there is a KPI ensured to guide any call center operation to a successful outcome. This KPI allows today's call centers to take full control of their phone conversations, and this is very much a positive development for the call center industry.

The uniquely dynamic BCI Training and Performance Management program is that KPI, and it combines a comprehensive, 5-Star level curriculum with a groundbreaking Quality Monitoring system that ensures our clients' agents offer an exceptional experience daily. Our clients think it's awesome, and we are confident you will, too.