Quality Assurance Trends in the Contact Center Industry

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Jan. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Adoption of digital channels continues to increase in U.S. contact centers. 83% of contact centers in the U.S. report using one or more channels in addition to their voice channel. But only 13% of companies measure quality of all interactions on all channels.

These insights stem from a survey sponsored by Bright Pattern, the leading provider of omnichannel cloud contact center software for innovative enterprises. The survey examined the current state of U.S contact center executives on omnichannel conversations and omnichannel quality management. Bright Pattern surveyed companies of all sizes and industries in the 2019 Omnichannel Customer Experience (CX) Benchmark Trend Report.

Among survey respondents, sampling is the preferred method to review interaction quality with 78% of respondents sampling interactions for quality assurance and only 13% reviewing every interaction (9% of respondents do not review any interactions). When sampling for quality assurance, many companies monitor and review less than 1% of customer interactions and are often limited to voice.

While, sampling is the preferred method due to sheer volume of interactions, artificial intelligence (AI) is being deployed in call centers to automate quality management. With the volume of interactions to be assessed, AI may be the only practical way to cost-effectively  assess all interactions and glean actionable information to improve customer experiences. Over 40% of respondents are planning to use AI for quality management within the next 3 years. 19% indicated they are already using AI for quality management.

“Monitoring the customer journey across all channels via sentiment or voice of the customer is critical to every company – especially given the growth of newer digital channels like text messages, chat, and messengers,” said Ted Hunting, Senior Vice President of Bright Pattern. “ Most companies are failing to measure the quality of interactions of most channels and interactions.  Bright Pattern is the first cloud contact center vendor to use AI to measure every single interaction on every channel to address the quality gap all companies are facing.” 

• Only 22% of respondents are omnichannel, with most customer conversations being siloed as customers move between channels. Despite serving customers in more channels, the management of these interactions is not unified because 62% of respondents indicated they are multichannel (17% of respondents are voice-only). 
• Sampling is the preferred method to review interaction quality. 78% of respondents sample interactions for quality assurance, 13% review every interaction, and 9% do not review interactions at all.

• Most respondents are not digging into deeper metrics of CX like Sentiment Analysis, Customer Effort, and Emotional Analysis and could be missing an opportunity to discover insights to improve their business.
• Contact centers are much less likely to measure quality on newer channels like mobile apps or messengers and this will need to change as more customer interactions move to newer channels.
• Over 40% of respondents are planning to use AI for quality management within the next 3 years. 19% indicated they are already using AI for quality management.

Find out more about the current state of omnichannel quality management by downloading the 2019 Bright Pattern Omnichannel Customer Experience (CX) Benchmark Trend Report.

For the latest best practices on quality assurance read Bright Pattern’s latest ebook “Top Ten Keys for Creating, Measuring, and Improving Omnichannel Journeys”.