Customers are now communicating in more and more channels and picking their favorites. This is great for the consumer, but companies are struggling to maintain consistent service across these channels and customer satisfaction is dropping as a result.
Omnichannel Quality Management samples interactions across all of the organization’s customer service channels. It offers a clear view of the customer, whether they are texting, chatting with a bot, engaging in social media, or talking directly with an agent. Without it, the call center is flying blind with no way to tell which channels are performing well, which ones are failing to provide good service, and which interactions are having the most impact on the customer. But you can never have too much visibility into your operations, so we’d like to share five features we believe should be at the heart of every effective Omnichannel Quality Management program.
BASIC, EFFECTIVE, AND MANAGEABLE MONITORING
We begin with the basics. But getting this right is the bedrock of every monitoring initiative and is the only way to increase quality effectively. Voice recording and monitoring is well established and straightforward. You record all the calls and listen to them. However, managing the complexity and volume of calls is the hallmark of a top-performing monitoring system. You must be able to access and search calls for specific issues in real time. Your analytics should provide insights to identify trends and spot problems as early as possible. Access to this data should be easy and universal to all managers and employees who can effect change. As we widen the scope to include all your channels, your monitoring, storage, and access should be consistent for the user. It is no use having excellent call monitoring if you have a cumbersome and unworkable system for email and chat. The user should have the same experience with your monitoring technology regardless of channel.
Learn more about omnichannel monitoring and KPIs by reading our blog CX Metrics for Today’s Digital World
SENTIMENT ANALYSIS
So, you’ve built a world-class monitoring system and you now have access to every conversation a customer has in all your channels. You know everything they are saying, but do you understand what they mean? That’s where sentiment analysis comes in. Using a suite of technologies, including natural language understanding (NLU), text analysis, computational linguistics, and biometrics, sentiment analysis can get to the heart of the customer’s opinions and attitude during any interaction. It is incredibly valuable in identifying the real value of the service you are offering, how it is directly affecting the customer at that moment, and how this will ultimately affect your brand.
KEYWORD PATTERNS
Keyword patterns occur when different people express the same issue using the same words and word order. This is a vital part of monitoring because it enables the call center to identify problems in real time and react in the shortest time possible. For example, an airline might use keyword patterns to see an issue with a certain airport. The issue may be out of their control, like a problem with getting through security, so their operational reporting would not necessarily have caught it. It is their customers’ voices letting them know. Keyword patterns can also ring alarm bells for service outages, product issues, and anything where there isn’t an obvious line of communication.
INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION
According to Gartner Research, the majority of companies only track customer journeys manually. This is usually done after the fact and as a result, they are unable to actually act in the moment and fix issues as they arise. Intelligent automation allows you to track, route and most importantly, act on low CSAT scores in real time. Satisfaction can be measured with simple, automated surveys at the end of an interaction. If the score drops below a certain threshold, the call can be routed to a specialist to remedy the issue.
FLEXIBLE SCORING
Every company is different. Every call center is unique. We think it is essential to be able to create and edit scorecards to match your particular situation. By having your own scoring system, you can focus on what’s really critical to your customer service. Some companies live or die on the speed of their response. Others offer the highest levels of attention to support their brand. Quality means something different to every customer. Identifying exactly what your customers think is quality service and then being able to accurately score what you deliver is an essential side of quality management.
THE AGENT EXPERIENCE
It’s one thing to put all these quality monitoring practices and technology into place, but do not forget that at the end of the day, the agent experience is a large part of a good customer experience. Empowered and productive agents make happy customers. The right quality monitoring technology is vital to their empowerment and should be available to as many of your staff members as possible. It should provide tools that are powerful, yet easy to use. The data and insights that come out of your systems should empower your agents, not punish them. Agents should have access to features that enable them to proactively improve, self monitor, and manage their quality without over burdening them and adding unnecessary workload. The most effective quality management systems are the ones that are used the most.
Omnichannel Quality Management is important in all contact centers. Learn more about Bright Pattern Quality Assurance and Management technology.
