In today’s Contact Center operations, call quality monitoring is an essential process not to be neglected. Putting in place and implementing a systematic call quality monitoring program can be as challenging as an organizational change initiative. Apart from improving individual’s performance through training and development, a successful call quality monitoring program provides greater benefits.

High performance contact center professionals not only deliver call quality, but are also capable of positively affecting customer satisfaction and loyalty. Apart from that, they are also able to capture customer’s input that leads to better products and marketing. In the process of assisting customers on the usage of self-service systems (eg. IVR and Web-based systems), they indirectly capture ideas for improving these systems hence increasing its usage. Effective call quality monitoring also focuses on leveraging the knowledge gathered from customer contacts to create better systems, processes and services.

In modern quality, a general perception is that those directly involved know best. Contact center agents are in the ideal position to help define what constitutes a quality contact, and how processes, training and systems can be improved. Involving contact center agents in the call quality monitoring improvement initiative will promote ownership and empowerment. These are the key components in quality improvement and job satisfaction.

While agents are an important part of the process, there is little use exhorting them alone to improve quality and innovation. Many of the things that contribute to quality are out of their control, such as good training, well-designed systems and a logical work flow. The process itself is often where the biggest opportunity for improvement lies. This requires fixing problems at the group level. As such, an effective call quality monitoring program supported by the top level will serve as a tool for improving group performance.

An effective call quality monitoring program leverage’s results by correlating them to other key call center measurements, e.g., customer satisfaction surveys, service level, costs per call, average handling time and experience level of agents. There is a need to identify the type and extent of the correlations. Better understanding on the interrelated nature of the organization's mission, call center results, day-by-day and contact-by-contact activities will lead to improvements and innovations.

The crucial step in ensuring a well designed call quality monitoring program is successful is to obtain the buy-in from the respective individuals. Contact Center agents should be enthusiastic about monitoring and be aware that this program recognizes their accomplishments, helps them grow as individuals and enables them to be better aligned with the call center's strategic directions.