5 Reasons to re-think your Quality Management Strategy
With an ever-increasing focus on effective Customer Experience Management practices, many organisations have chosen between the lesser of two evils; do away with their own internal Quality Management Frameworks viewing them as redundant or, continue using ineffective and costly traditional methodologies which are necessary but do not deliver any tangible benefit.
However, having the ability to unleash the true potential of your quality management programme will create demonstrable returns for your business, and catapult your contact centre into a position of strategic prominence in terms of your Customer Experience strategy.
It’s time to completely re-think the role of Quality Management within the contact centre and here’s why:
- The ability to proactively create the experience your customers desire
Organisations would be remiss in ignoring the fact that contact centres cannot deliver the desired customer experience simply using a traditional, quality management scorecard that is focused on the isolated interactions customers have with the front-line agents.
The reality is that the customer’s experience is comprised of the sum total of all aspects of their engagement with the contact centre. By designing a quality management programme which assesses the effectiveness of all these components, contact centres can begin to gain a foothold in re-engineering their people capabilities, as well as the organisation’s products, processes and technology to deliver a truly evolved service.
- Build an intelligence powerhouse
When a Quality Management Framework is re-designed to effectively measure the contact centre’s ability to execute all components required to deliver the desired experience, it becomes a powerhouse of analytical information and insight. This can be used to target key drivers of dissatisfaction, conduct effective customer needs analysis and predict and plan for future customer requirements.
This type of information becomes a key differentiator in allowing the organisation to respond, in a forward-thinking manner, to the needs of their customers as opposed to simply measuring the quality of their relationship on a purely transactional basis.
- Develop operational accountability
A customer-centric, rather than agent centric, Quality Management Framework ensures that accountability for delivering an improved experience and business state is both shared and owned by every operational stakeholder within the contact centre environment.
Mind sets begin to shift when the evaluation and coaching of an individual agent is viewed as a role performed by several individuals working within a quality department. It should also be an imperative for all operational management staff to equip their front-line teams with a comprehensive and multi-faceted toolkit required in order to service a customer effectively.
- Create powerful synergies within your Contact Centre
Engaging the capabilities of less traditional players in the execution of a contact centre’s Quality Management Strategy creates a unique opportunity to effectively close the loop between assessment, analysis activities and the actual prioritisation and execution of customer experience improvement initiatives.
By leveraging the unique sets of intelligence available through IT, HR, Training, Workforce Management, Management Information and Business Improvement functions, the operational contact centre management team is able to glean a balanced, relevant and global view of performance which positions them to create change that actually counts.
- Optimise business practices
The benefits of an effective Quality Management Framework are not purely for the customer. The right type of quality analytics allow contact centres to actively identify and implement additional cost reduction and revenue generating activities, enabling better service practices and investment decisions.
Strategic quality management practices afford contact centres the opportunity to gain a bird’s eye view of their estate and the opportunities offered to make better financial decisions. This is in stark contrast to the rather skewed picture derived by monitoring customer interactions at a purely transactional level.
Global Quality Management practices are also far more cost effective than traditional methodologies where the use of pre-determined ratios dictate unjustified expenditure to resource the function.
In summary, Quality Management has evolved to deliver far more than risk mitigation and an assessment of agent competence. When leveraged effectively, it can become the cornerstone of any effective Customer Experience Management programme and a source of vital Business Intelligence.