Coaching - QA vs. Ops

[mgriffin01]

I am looking for data which will support my desire to have the Quality Assurance Specialists (the folks who perform most of the evaluations on CSRs) perform coaching to support those evaluations. At present, it is our corporate philosophy that Team Leads perform 100% of coaching for their CSRs.

This approach has proven to be somewhat ineffective as many evaluations performed are never coached and many "coaching" sessions involve handing the CSR a paper copy of the evaluation and asking if they have any questions.

Help please! It is my firm opinion that no evaluation should ever be performed unless coaching is attached. If Team Leads are unable to coach due to work load, then why not share that responsibility with QA Specialists?

Your feedback would be greatly appreciated.

[CCPro]

I apologize for cutting and pasting this reply, but I just posted it earlier today under another thread, these are my honest thoughts on the subject. I have been involved in Quality Work for close to 25 years,,approx 5 years in Inbound Call Centers.

Secret to Effective QA Coaching

QAs can coach til the cows come home with good results, but you'll never get excellent results. To move from good to excellent you need the Rep's immediate supervisor involved in the process. Until the person that writes the review and recommends the raise is brought into the process, you will not move to the level you want to achieve. QA people simply do not have the WIFM (What's In It For Me) Impact that a direct line supervisor does. The sup does not necessarily have to perform QA Evals, but they need to be following up on the QAs and reinforcing strengths and weaknesses and driving the improvement change in their people. QA "reports the news", they don't make it,,,and that's the way any QA in any industry should be viewed.

In a Call Center, Operational Supervisors should "own" the QA Score, and Customer Service levels no matter who conducted the QA Evaluation of the people on their team.

[mgriffin01]

CCPro,

Thank you for the honest feedback. I fully understand and appreciate your comments. I, too, fully support TLs providing the coaching. My problem though is the TLs lack of appreciation for the QA process and the lack of accountability of the TLs by their Managers.

I have been working through this process unsuccessfully for about 14 months now. Due to the lack of accountability, I feel my only recourse is to have QAS provide the feedback. At least then I know feedback is being given and the CSRs will have a better understanding of why calls are evaluated as they are.

My goal is to develop a more comprehensive approach to QA, gaining the trust and support of the Program Managers by way of their TLs and CSRs. It is only with support from both Operations and Training that the QA process will succeed.

Thanks again and please provide additional feedback as you see fit. I am always open for suggestions.

[thetuan]

You are absolutely correct in wanting to involve the QA monitors in the coaching session. It is our call center policy that the QA monitor AND the team supervisor go over the weekly monitor report card with the CSR WITHIN half hour after the monitoring session by the QA department.

Also, we have developed our mgmt bonus program for our supervisors and the QA monitors around quality as one of the key indicator measurements. For your issue, once you tie the supervisor bonus around quality and your leadership team have done a proper job of training your supervisor team on how to coach and develop a high performing team, then you have equipped your supervisors with the tools and the incentives to do their jobs properly.

Another thing that will help is the calibration sessions between the QA department and the Ops department. This is critical in building not only the consistency with every monitoring and coaching sessions with the reps but more importantly, it will build the critical teamwork spirit between QA and Ops.

This is only two of the things that might help you. There are other initiatives that you could implement to properly stimulate and to prepare your departments to provide the best quality for your customers.

Good luck

[CCPro]

I'm sorry for miscommunicating on something. I absolutely believe in the QA folks delivering their own feedback. Where the ops supervisors come into play is they must provide follow-up on the QA Feedback as a minimum.

Here is a scenario: A QA Tech delivers a very low scoring feedback to a rep. The rep was rude to the customer and displayed several areas of low techinical competency.

A. Call Center A - The rep's supervisor provides no follow-up or at best lip-service to the isssues. (this usually indicates the death spiral of the Ops driven "productivity over all else" mentality)

B. Call Center B - The rep' supervisor visits with the rep within hours, reinforces what was communicated by the QA person, offers training in weak areas and reinforces the gravity of the situation of being rude to a customer.

In Situation B, you have the needed follow-up on the QA Coaching session. The "reinforcement" from he or she who evaluates me and makes or breaks me is the key element here. The follow-up also reinforces the sense of value and importance the company has in the whole QA Process. Without this crucial show of support your QA Program is simply a "paper tiger."

I also believe that direct supervisors should be conducting their own QA Evals as well. As for Calibration sessions - they too are critical to the success of the QA Program. Allthough behavior of all parties once they leave the calibration session is always an unknown.

In our situation we have the Supervisor conduct 75% of the required evals and QA 25%. Also to ensure the most pure measure of performance, only the third party, neutral scores of the QA Team are used for measures. Supervisor scores are too easily skewed either high or low by favoritism, vendattas, lack of caring, "pencil whipping to make my quota",etc.

Hope this clarification helps,,,sorry for the initial confusion.

[djdaley]

Avery interesting quandry.

Have you considered the fault may lie in a few other areas?

Whilst I agree with the arguments to date, there is a couple of elements missing.

1. Team Leader KPIs - do they support the emphasis on coaching for quality as well as productivity?

2. Trend analysis - in providing episodic feedback for each call evaluation, there is a great risk in not allowing for the good and bad days. In other words, no performance trend is shown. Thius is where the real value lies for your coaches.

3. QA staff send the message. A leader uses that message. That leader does not take it on face value, as he/she has the insigfht to understand a specific agents current development needs. De motivating for agents is being told to improve in one area by two different people.

Your struggle is with both groups. Ops and QA. Process change needs to be incorporated with KPI allignment. You may also need to consider some good team leader training.

Best of luck!

[williampan]

In my humble opinon, we should seperate quality assurance from qualtiy control (QC).
In our company there is one special department SPD (service planning and development) responsible for qualtiy assurance and training. Operation superviosr will also monitor agents call. the ratio would be 50/50. spd officer would collect qa results, including qc conducted by operation department, generate report and feedback to operation header. suggestion and training recommendation would be included in this report. this officer will deliver trainining course relatively. As we know, trainer in call center is defferent with other industries. they should familiarize the prohect process and evaluation tool and so on. which would make training course more practical and intended.
regarding penalty of bad service, it is accountability of operation department. he should design correlative scheme.

callibration in different department or staff is also very important.

[JMichael]

Is anyone aware of any online Quality Assurance industry standard forms available?

Also, sample monitoring/coaching forms as well?



John