The following great questions were asked during the recent APCO training Webcast on Public Safety Quality Assurance Best Practices and Tools. Please find below our answers for your review:

Quality Assurance Software Questions and Answers

Does the VPI QA system come with quality evaluation forms? If so, how would we customize them or add new ones?

Yes, VPI’s QA system is delivered with sample evaluation forms that have been developed based on best practices of our customers. These forms can be used as templates – you can modify, delete and add any number of questions, skills and sections.  One or more questions can be associated with each skill – answers to those questions during the quality evaluation session are automatically aggregated for a total score for each skill.  You can also create any number of new forms from a scratch, simply following intuitive graphical user interface.

Will the VPI QA software work in a situation where telecommunicators both call take and dispatch multiple, overlapping calls?

Yes, absolutely.  The system does not just associate different forms to different telecommunicators.  This form association is done based on the type of call taken and the type of work done.  Naturally, you will have different criteria for dispatching vs. call taking – these requirements can be either combined in the same evaluation form yet still separated into sections (in a tabbed interface), or you can have different forms for each type of work, depending on specifics of your call flow. Concurrent, overlapping calls are recorded as separate audio/data files which can be then evaluated separately.  With this said, you may also group multiple recordings (such as when evaluating the entire incident) into an “incident” collection that you save under a custom name and then this set of recordings can be evaluated with a single form that contains all needed sections or elements.  In summary, VPI’s QA system is very flexible and adaptable to virtually any center and situation.

We are a small countywide dispatch center with only 6 fulltime personnel. Does the QA program scale well for small dispatch centers as well as for larger ones?

Yes.  Agencies of all sizes should have a QA program in place.  The per-seat pricing of the software allows for easy incremental scaling. Beyond that, since you create your own process, evaluation criteria and forms using VPI software interface, it is completely scalable and adaptable to your evolving needs.

How would multiple evaluators access this system on-site or off-site?

VPI’s QA system is browser based, which means that it does not require installation of any software at user workstations.  It can be accessed by any number of authorized users via your LAN or WAN connection to your local Intranet or “private cloud”.   Evaluators could even review and evaluate calls remotely from off-site locations, using secure remote connection such as VPN.

Since during the training phase you evaluate a trainees’ skills, knowledge and abilities, could this software serve as a type of DOR for the OJT Phase?

Yes.  You can build in any evaluation form you wish.  This would provide excellent documentation by allowing you to save the audio files to the evaluation for ease in future retrieval.

What audio recorder platforms can you work with?

VPI’s QA system can coexist with any full-time recording system, including the VPI Capture NG9-1-1 ready recording system. For public safety agencies that currently have an existing full-time recording system, the VPI Quality software bundle comes embedded with its own built-in quality recording module to record console audio for quality assurance purposes.  All console audio is recorded and calls are then automatically selected using a business rule or manually selected for QA evaluation. If calls are not selected for quality evaluation within a period of time that you define, they are deleted to free up space to record future calls for quality evaluation. The quality assurance application and the quality recording element share the same the hardware platform.

What CADs can the VPI QA software integrate with?

VPI integrates with major CAD brands, including Tiburon, Intergraph and Tritech and provides a variety of integration options for any other CAD system as well. The CAD data is used for automated classification and visualization of recorded call taker and dispatcher calls and screens for fast evidence assembly and value-driven analysis – by incident types, numbers, severity, and/or other parameters. The integration is a passive, one-directional intgegration where we pull data from CAD systems and use it, but do not feed any data back to CAD.

Does the QA form software interface with Intergraph (or other) CAD systems?  If so, in what way?

Yes, VPI’s QA evaluation system successfully integrates with Intergraph CAD.  CAD data can optionally be captured and used to drive the selection of the most important calls for evaluation.  Intergraph CAD (or any other CAD including TriTech, Tiburon, etc.) system provides incident data, such as incident type, ID, severity and the like.  When this data is attached to relevant call recordings, it serves for classification of calls by incident types (or severity) which then helps with prioritization of recordings for review according to their significance or urgency.  For example, your local requirement may be to evaluate ALL domestic violence calls, but only samples of other types of calls.  The system can pull all domestic violence (or any other incident type per your setting) calls for evaluation and automatically attach the most relevant evaluation form to those calls, all of which is then served in the “to-do” list of assigned evaluator(s).

If you would like to/need to, can you still "hunt and peck" for calls?

Absolutely.  You can set up the call selection for QA in any way you want. It can be a combination of calls that are selected automatically by a system rule that you define, calls that you select manually as needed, and even calls that may be flagged by dispatchers/call takers for review.  Hunting and pecking for calls o be evaluated is really easy with VPI’s recording systems – either search by any number and combination of criteria (date/time, employee ID, call type, call length, radio ID, etc.) or you can simply respond to system reports and notifications of abnormal calls.

Is this a paperless system?

Yes, it can be completely paperless.  All interfaces, forms and reports are electronic.  Printing of any reports or details of QA evaluations is available but not required.

If our telephone system is on a separate server than our CAD system, can it all still be integrated?

Yes, we can pull data from multiple sources and attach it to appropriate recordings, enhancing the quality evaluation process as well as reporting on incidents in general.

What is the licensing model for the QA system - site license or by seat?

Pricing for licensing is by seat/position.

Coaching / E-Learning Questions and Answers

What is your definition of coaching? Is it formal training, simple discussion, notes on QA form or something different?

In general, coaching is a personalized learning process (or program) that provides timely support to employees. In some cases, coaching may be a short verbal conversation with personnel while reviewing the quality evaluation form.  However, for documentation purposes, you want the majority of your coaching to have some written component that should effect a change in performance and behavior, and a quiz to ensure there is retention and that learning did take place.

Does the VPI QA software facilitate E-learning? Does it allow for the development of messages and quizzes with questions on e-learning and messages? Does it report on when the dispatcher has viewed and acted upon all of it?

Yes, the VPI Coaching software allows you to create business rules that will automatically deploy coaching assignments based upon scores to certain questions, skills or overall scores on the evaluation.  You can also create quizzes and include them with training to confirm comprehension of conveyed information.

Any learning course can be associated with a quiz that is automatically started at the conclusion of the training content.  Quiz results are included in the training report of each employee.  Messages to call takers/dispatchers can be triggered based on a variety of events, such as specific QA scores, passing/failing scores in quizzes, and the like.  You can set up the messages to require acknowledgement.  Report / quiz / message assignments as well as their completion and acknowledgments (as appropriate for each) are listed in coaching reports that show dates and times associated with each action.

Can you tell if they actually read the document? Does it show how much time they had the document open?

Yes, this is a part of standard tracking of e-learning assignments.  Coaching / E-Learning reports show dates and times of all content and messages sent to each dispatcher/call taker as well dates and times of when the content was accessed and completed.  When SCORM compliant content is used, the system can also report on very granular details of the learning process, such as the amount of time that each employee takes with each quiz question, section of the coaching content, and the like.  This will provide valuable hints regarding most common struggles that need additional attention.

Will the coaching sample be the same across the board or will it change depending on the situation?

Coaching assignments should fit the situation.  Some errors are generic, such as talking too rapidly, and that type of learning content could be prepared and used for all call takers.  You may design a variety of other learning modules and associate them to evaluation questions or skills, so that they are automatically selected when ratings in various areas do not reach desired minimums.  Each employee would then receive a different collection of learning modules, according to their specific knowledge or skill gaps.  In addition to this, other coaching materials may need to be created when warranted, in the form of a Personal Improvement Plan (PIP) to address specific, individual performance deficiencies that cannot be addressed with generic content.

Do we create the coaching or do you all create the coaching session?  Are the coaching and learning assignments pre-made or is it something that needs to be developed by the PSAP?

Training managers or supervisors select content from a variety of resources (APCO, your own recorded calls that show best practices, specific cases posted on-line, etc.) and add custom-designed content that reflects your specific policies and requirements.  The VPI software then takes care of automated (and also manual, when desired) assignments of coaching content to individuals in your PSAP center, as well as tracking of coaching status and resulting improvements.

Can we use our own recordings for coaching purposes?

Yes, absolutely. Any standards-based files can be used, to include recordings from your logger.  When recordings are captured by VPI systems, you receive an interface for redaction of sensitive sections of call and screen recordings.  You can also add notations (such as to clarify why various sections of the call were or were not handled properly) and pop-up messages to maximize the learning experience.  These customized, modified recordings are saved as copies in order to protect the integrity of original recordings.

The following excellent questions were asked during the recent APCO training Webcast on Public Safety Quality Assurance Best Practices and Tools. Lori VanGilder, Manager of Quality Assurance Services at Replay Systems, APCO Institute Adjunct Instructor and prior Communications Supervisor in Florida, provided the following answers below for your review.

Our QA program is viewed by the dispatchers negatively. We offer several training steps to assist the dispatcher in improving. What advice do you have to make the QA process a more positive experience?

First of all, it is great that you do have a program in place.  If there are negative perceptions of the program, start by asking if you utilize the evaluations on the employees annual review?  If so, this provides documentation of all the times they did great, and not just a supervisory file of the occasional negative situations that occur.  I would also ask if everyone on the staff has been trained on the program to understand its process and objectives.  Lastly, perhaps you want to try ensuring that you are including motivational feedback and not just the documented deficiencies.  Are you sending out positive feedback on great performance?  And is it timely? Also, are you sending out informational responses with your QA regarding stress management?  Try to make the program "feel" more empathetic to the Telecommunicators.

Our agency has had QA established for quite some time; however, the scores were always very high and rarely pointed out errors that needed to be addressed. Now, there is a new supervisor completing the QA (previous dispatcher/trainer) and she is fair grading all the same across the board. Many dispatchers/call takers are offended and upset with the supervisor because errors are now being brought to their attention. She also uses positive feedback and constructive criticism when necessary. Is this negativity a typical phase that centers go through and what can we do to help the morale.

Unfortunately, what you have described is very common occurrence.  If the program has been in place and not fairly administered, the new person completing the evaluations faces some challenges.  I would recommend starting out with a training session for the entire staff regarding the policy that governs your quality assurance program.  In that training make sure everyone is aware of the grading standards and what is viewed as compliant/non-compliant/ and exemplary for scoring.  There are going to be some hurt feelings, however stepping forward and addressing the issue should also garner her some respect from the team.

Once the criteria is well understood, we would recommend that you introduce some elements of call taker / dispatcher participation into your QA process.  For example, you can have them flag some of their calls for evaluation – such as those where they did exceptionally well.  Be quick to recognize them for the work well done as soon as such calls are reviewed. You can also allow the call takers/dispatchers evaluate some of their own calls, following the same process as the supervisor.  People typically rate themselves more strictly then when third party does it – listening to their calls after the fact provides a different experience than when they are involved in the call for the first time. These evaluations would be subject to supervisory review and finalization.  We also recommend that call takers/dispatchers receive a copy of their evaluation with embedded call/radio recording for review and specific, constructive comments that can be entered into the evaluation if they believe that their rating was unjust. The evaluator may still revise the ratings (if the employee feedback is valid) and finalize the evaluation thereafter.

What statistical data suggests that "many agents are under-motivated, and see QA as only punitive"?  We have had QA in place for years - and that is not the case here.

You are indeed in a very fortunate situation.  This data is published by a variety of organizations to include:

• National Academies of Emergency Dispatch
• 911Trainer.com
• 9-1-1 Magazine whose team conducted an extensive research to assess many aspects of today’s QI/QA at 9-1-1 centers and published results in their magazine.  They queried dispatchers, supervisors, QI/QA personnel, managers and EMD system providers – in all states around the nation.
• Individual sharing posts from dispatchers can be found on social media sites (LinkedIn and Facebook) and in blogs
• Apart from this information, multiple attendees of our Webinar meeting posted comments about their centers experiencing this same situation – their dispatchers/call takers view the QA process very negatively

Do you suggest one person do all QA work or divide it up by Shift/Supervisor? And if it is divided up, would it be a good idea to have supervisors only evaluate those not on their respective shift?

The answer would depend upon your agency staffing.  In some cases there are too many calls to be reviewed by one person for this to be practical, and in others one single point of contact is an excellent idea.  The most important thing is to ensure that any and all evaluators are grading the same way- that is considered calibration of the gradings.  Also, it is important that those who conduct the evaluations understand the need for confidentiality, otherwise a Telecommunicator could become embarrassed and end up with a negative perception of the program as a whole.

In some states, medical QA is protected from legal discovery (i.e., it is not available for use by attorneys in lawsuits. Is there any similar protection for dispatch QI?  If not, another approach is to not maintain QI info as a permanent record - meaning use it for improvement then delete.

Unfortunately, we are not able to advise an answer for the legal implications as each state has their own statutes.  Please turn to your own agency’s legal division.

Do you recommend Q&A if you are not a 911 center or the main emergency answering point. You get the occasional emergency call that you transfer to the 911 center but for the most part you only answer non-emergency or after the call type calls. If you do, what type do you recommend?

Yes. Quality Assurance can be conducted in any type of call center.  Any personnel who are coming in contact with the public on telephones can/should be evaluated to ensure that the contact is positive for everyone. Your evaluation forms would follow the requirements and criteria that are relevant to your organization and its objectives.

I am a working Supervisor, how much time is dedicated to the QA program?

To conduct a complete evaluation, document it and apply some coaching/learning  (if needed) can take approximately 20 min per call.  If the call is exceptional, obviously that time is greatly reduced.  Assignments of coaching/e-learning can be automated, so that it is automatically triggered based on results of you QA evaluation. 

What is the business model for using ReplayQA? Per call evaluated, monthly fees, etc.?

ReplayQA pricing is based upon call volume and system needs.

Is there anything in CALEA, APCO or NENA certifications that require QA programs in Communications centers?

Yes.  All of them have standards that require Quality Assurance.  APCO Mini Telecommunicator Training  Standards, APCO P33 certification standard, Calea does have a QA standard, NENA call processing standard 56-6 and NFPA standards 1710 and 1221..

How important is calibration of QA? We have 4 people review the same call for monthly random QA. Then calibrate any scores with a 10 point variance?  It's a lengthy process.

Calibration is excellent and it is great that you are including it in your quality assurance program.  It sounds like there is not a lot of effort invested into the objectivity of your evaluation process.  You should be able to reduce the number of calibrations needed by clearly outlining what specific conduct or performance equates to each grade.  These internal standards can be conveyed in a meeting format and reinforced via electronic training where the standards are reiterated.

What is the legal liability associated with disposing of QA recordings and coaching documentation? Is ALL QA discoverable?

Unfortunately, we are not able to advise an answer for the legal implications as each state has their own statutes.  Please refer to your own agency legal division.

Does RePlay QA hire independant contractors to work from home doing reviews

Yes, Replay hires experienced Telecommunications professionals to perform as Assessors and complete the evaluations from their homes.

Do you see any negative issues with having call takers and dispatchers doing the QA reviews and not just supervisors?

If the grading criteria are firmly established in your policy, then the grading should be consistent, regardless of who performs the evaluation.  However, the confidentiality issues may prevent evaluations done by call takers or dispatchers from being a good idea, unless you are referring to agent self-evaluations.  We do recommend self-evaluations. In general, the personnel conducting the evaluations need to be capable of keeping the information in the evaluations confidential so as to not embarrass or discredit a peer, which would create a negative view of the entire program.

My agency currently has a QA program and we have an initial evaluator and 2 additional raters per call. Our program takes an average of all three scores for the call-takers final score. Is this overkill to have 3 evaluators. Do most QA programs only utilize one rater?

Your agency clearly has seen the need for calibration of the ratings on the evaluations, which is great.  However, we do see having three people evaluate the same call as a redundant, likely unjustified usage of time and resources.  Perhaps you want to look at the grading criteria for your evaluations and work to remove all subjectivity so there can be more belief that the correct ratings are issued by a single evaluator.  Organizations typically perform one calibration session once or twice a month, which has been shown to suffice as long as grading criteria are clearly defined and the evaluation forms use the proper selection of grading choices to address each evaluation question.  For example, 10-point sliding scales invite more variance between evaluators than 3 or 5-point scales. Yes/no answers may be most appropriate with questions that relate to accuracy, and the like. 

There are many people who believe that expectations such as the 1221 standard on call processing times (< 60 seconds for 95% calls) is unrealistic when performing EMD on EMS calls. Would you comment on that please?

There are many recent discussions on this topic on APCO PS Connect.  Yes, the standards are very high.  However, you have to keep in mind that many agencies who have a separate call taker and dispatcher, as well as smaller agencies where your partner can dispatch while you continue talking to the caller, are meeting the standard by sending the call to the dispatcher as soon as basic information is obtained and then updating the screen and the responders after the initial dispatch.  That helps a great deal with the call processing time.

Currently, we cannot buy software so how do we best start a QA program?

You can conduct a QA program completely without the software.  Create a paper form or use MS Excel and define your grading criteria there.  Then randomly select calls from your recorder to evaluate and tabulate the results. If budget is an issue, you may also want to consider leasing the VPI quality assurance software for an affordable monthly payment.

Credit unions and community banks are increasingly coping with federal and local legislation, interest rate hikes and volatility in capital markets, all of which entails placing greater emphasis on local and regional customer retention, quality assurance, internal controls, as well as more careful compliance and risk management. Although these smaller banks share many common challenges with large contact centers, they have unique needs that can be addressed using today’s modular, highly customizable call quality monitoring and workforce optimization solutions.

Small- to mid-sized financial services contact centers face a number of operational challenges relatively unknown to the larger contact center. With limited resources and shrinking budgets, a Branch or Regional Manager for smaller contact center needs to carefully keep an eye out for inefficient practices to find opportunities for cost reduction. He or she needs to carefully plan capital expenditures, and training investments, while keeping up with significant hardware and software investments within their broader organization.

Traditionally, customer service and help desk environments are known as high-turnover environments. This is rather typical for smaller financial services contact centers as well, where employees tend to consider helpdesk positions to be transient or temporary. To anticipate and reduce the impact of this phenomenon, it is best in the early days of their careers to give agents some time off the phone for cross-training and multi-skilling to respond to email or perform other administrative duties while they are mastering the skills to becoming expert contact center professionals.

Another necessity is ongoing training to keep them engaged, alert and empowered to resolve customer issues quickly, while they answer phone calls during their careers. In fact, with today’s tightly integrated quality monitoring and coaching software tools, skill development can be highly personalized according to the needs and objectives of each agent and simultaneously targeted directly at business goals of the contact center as well as the broader home organization. Gartner predicts that staffing will account for up to 80% of contact center budgets in the new world of customer interaction. The need for such a substantial investment just cannot be left to a chance. Yet, it is often an area that is overlooked and not really routinely reviewed by managers.

Regardless of size, every contact center must provide excellent customer service, reduce costs and maintain a healthy profit margin to thrive in the new economic model. By adopting advanced technologies for monitoring quality and optimizing customer-service and contact centers — including analytics-driven call center quality assurance systems that help identify and automate routine contact-center and customer-service tasks — mortgage companies and credit unions can dramatically affect their performance and profitability.

By now, most successful contact centers have already adopted at least baseline grade digital call recording and quality monitoring solutions. They are the fundamental building blocks for any type of workforce optimization solution, but they are just a start that may be due for review and re-evaluation, especially if they come from early generations of quality monitoring that couldn’t see beyond the horizon of individual agent compliance with (possibly outdated) internal rules and policies. These older technologies did not really have a good way of connecting standards for customer/agent interactions with evolving business objectives of the bank, let alone being able to incorporate voice of the customer into any part of the quality management process. The good news is that the call center quality assurance technologies evolved to the point where contact centers can focus the entire process onto what really matters and what can make the biggest impact on business performance, without losing any objectivity in assessing agent performance. In fact, evaluating agents based on their quantifiable contributions to the contact center’s business success supports their drive to do well, succeed in their jobs and avoid defection.

The proverbial “needle in a haystack” is now rather easy to find – with the implementation of advanced desktop screen analytics, supervisors can easily identify and evaluate the calls that resulted in a customer cancelling their account and taking their business elsewhere. Or the calls where agents attempted an upsale successfully or unsuccessfully, or where they saved a customer by resolving their issue during the first call – even without unnecessary concessions. Instead of wasting time and adding costs with reviewing completely random selection of low-value calls, why not concentrate on evaluating those calls that provide insights into the bank’s business practices every time, so that something could be done about it before opportunities are missed or lost forever?

Real-time performance management and automated E-Learning tools are the latest additions to the workforce optimization family of solutions that can be closely tied into quality management processes, to provide options for action mechanism whenever a manager needs to be notified or agent supported by just-in-time help.

The decision to choose one solution instead of another depends on a company’s needs, goals and circumstances, but with modular workforce optimization software suites, there is a sensible, financially sound path for every budget and objective.

The beauty of a completely integrated suite of workforce optimization applications is interoperability. Each individual solution has valuable capabilities, but multiple solutions can work symbiotically to provide even greater results. Beyond the immediate improvement of contact center performance involving operating costs, workforce optimization solutions allow for quick decision making which in turn helps resolve issues for customers. Easy access to call recordings can help contact centers give better customer service. Call records can be used to settle disputes quickly and with minimum inconvenience.

Recorded calls provide excellent material for training purposes – real-life examples of good and bad agent-customer interactions. This helps the manager effectively intervene when agents are underperforming. The latest-generation solutions have the capability to automatically select and assign coaching and training through courses, tips, quizzes, training flashes, pre-shift announcements and bulletins according to individual agent needs, identified through quality evaluations or simply by monitoring their performance metrics. This tool allows you to set rules that send targeted coaching and training to individual agents or groups when they reach predetermined thresholds based on their performance scores, customer survey results and more. By targeting the right training to the right person at the right time, your agents will be empowered with personalized guidance that will make it easier for them to offer improved service, thus heightening customer satisfaction and ultimately increasing both, agent productivity and satisfaction with the job. Managers can track sales and address marketing and service challenges quickly.

Integrated workforce optimization systems can accomplish this in a cost-effective manner while decreasing expenses, increasing revenues and enhancing customer loyalty and satisfaction – all of which can lead to strengthened market position, customer loyalty and long-term bottom-line growth.

Are you interested in keeping up-to-date on the latest developments in contact center call recording, quality monitoring, analytics, performance management or eLearning technologies?

As organizations look to optimize the performance of their contact centers and the vital role agents play in providing customers with the right experiences as they handle interactions, the demand for thorough research into vendors and products that support agent performance management is becoming critical. Ventana Research has just released this ground-breaking independent research report on Contact Center Agent Performance Management solutions.

You can download your complimentary 2010 Value Index for Agent Performance Management Research Report by Ventana Research at http://www.VPI-corp.com/2010-Value-Index to learn:

• What tools can help you more effectively manage of all the business activities associated with handling customer interactions to ensure an optimal customer experience and alignment to a common set of customer and revenue goals and objectives.
• A framework for buyers to thoroughly review technology vendors as they seek to purchase new systems to support their efforts.
• How 13 agent performance management software vendors and their products were ranked in several categories.
• Why VPI achieved the highest 'Hot Vendor' rating and was rated #1 in Customer Assurance.

It is that time of the year where contact centers are gearing up for the holiday season over the next couple months. Traditionally, this means hiring and training more agents than usual, based on forecasted volumes.  Due to the seasonality of contact center work, expectations and stress placed on contact center resources rise  - this affects especially team supervisors and their agents who are more prone to turnover during higher-stress periods. In fact, multiple  factors contribute to turnover - the most significant variable is the nature of the work the agent does and how they perceive their role within the center. 

While recently visiting an outsourced contact center, I was able to observe how training was delivered to a new hire training class. It turns out that my high school sports coach was right   - coaching and teamwork matter, especially today when selecting the right  agents from a pool of candidates, training them and getting them certified to be on the phones must be done in less than a month. I witnessed extraordinary collaborative effort expended to get the job done. However, the impressive enthusiasm of the contact center team clashed with their process design and technical challenges.
 
Dave, the Director of Operations advised me that it costs approximately USD $12,500 before an agent is competent enough to satisfactorily handle calls. He was perplexed with why in spite of this significant investment, he was experiencing a large turnover of his new agents within the first 30 days on the floor. When  we visited the contact center floor,  I noticed that the agent to supervisor ratio was rather high - around 1:25. I have immediately noticed that call center management was insufficient, as was mechanism for providing agents with timely, intraday feedback on their performance or guidance for improvement.  It looked like the agents were “abandoned” after their initial training. There was call recording equipment and workforce management software in the IT room. However, the center had no visible individuals who actually owned the metrics or were responsible for the generation of scorecards that would provide information to Dave on how the center was doing in the course of a day or, for that matter, a week.  This tough situation was further complicated by the fact that Dave only had four Supervisors to manage a team of hundred agents AND each Supervisor had  less than one-year tenure! . And as if that weren’t hard enough, one Supervisor was on vacation and  another called in sick. Sadly, it is an experience all too familiar to contact center managers today. Successfully managing a multi-channel contact center is one of the most difficult roles in business today due to the dynamic nature of the environment and all the intricacies woven into the equation. 

The contact center is often the only place that customers turn to when they require assistance or to purchase products and services. As shown in our example, working as an agent in a contact center can be a rather stressful job. As a result, turnover can be as high as 50% annually. That is a significant number that directly affects the operating costs of a center. But my question is - what is the real cost of this common phenomenon within a contact center?  Clearly, it will be  reflected in hard-to-measure ways each Monday morning to start with. Agents are likely to develop apathy and grow ever less engaged in their work due to the unsupportive environment that has been created for them. They will be less receptive to new ideas and more importantly, less willing to follow the coach or go the extra mile for the customer or the team. All of this triggers a cascade of  consequences for the business - reduced customer satisfaction, high agent turnover, and negative impact on  profitability.  And that’s exactly the opposite of what the holiday season promises to deliver for the business. Contact center managers must do their homework in order to understand the causes of their challenges as well as available options for addressing them.

Research at VPI has shown that agent and supervisor satisfaction and productivity can be dramatically improved through  an effective strategy of keeping everyone in the loop at all times.  You can achieve this by using call center performance management software that presents real or near-real time scorecards and other forms of status updates - personalized for each employee role according to their responsibilities, goals and needs.  Better yet, tie real-time call center performance management with intelligently triggered e-learning and coaching to help front-line agents learn and grow, supporting their individual skills and talents, giving them the tools and knowledge to please customers.  You will be soon rewarded with higher job satisfaction of the contact center staff and related cost savings. Customers will respond with increased trust and loyalty – so that you can be on the forefront of their choices during the holiday season and beyond.

Real-time Call Center Performance Management - Sample Agent Desktop Ticker


Real-time Call Center Performance Management - Sample Agent Web Scorecard

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