There are numerous definitions of Quality defined by Quality gurus who have dominated the quality field. However one common notion agreed by these quality experts is, Quality is the principal factor affecting an organization’s competitiveness. According to W. Edwards Demings, Quality resided in satisfying customer needs. In these needs, he included the characteristics of the product or service itself, its availability in the market and its price.

In the context of a contact center, Quality Excellence is to delight customers with distinct services towards achieving customer excellence. The ultimate aim is to ensure customers return. Quality Excellence in contact centers can be achieved by focusing and emphasizing on two key elements, People and Process. It is inevitable that both People and Process play an important role as they have a direct involvement in every level of a business function, especially in contact center operations.

The Quality Excellence approach of People and Process focused provides values to both customer and organization. Customers will benefit in increased service quality and enhanced customer experience, which will lead to increased customer retention, loyalty and advocacy. For organizations, being People and Process focused will result in lower staff attrition and operational efficiencies, which in turn will lead to performance optimization. This ultimately provides cost savings and world-class standards operations in organizations.

Ultimately, the ability of a contact center to achieve Quality Excellence in all aspects of its operations will allow it to differentiate itself with other contact centers in the industry. It will be a new challenge for existing contact centers to meet this goal and objective. The next step is for the management team to strategize how to work towards achieving Quality Excellence. Only by investing top management’s full commitment and participation, can Quality be effective.