Offering high-quality customer service at high volume requires effort, consistency, and the right tools. However, 35% of customer service professionals struggle with service quality while scaling their teams.
One effective solution to this challenge is to use call quality monitoring forms. They help track agent performance, ensure compliance, and improve customer interactions.
In this guide, we help you build an effective call quality monitoring form with a clear evaluation criteria to improve customer experiences.
What is a Call Quality Monitoring Form?
A call monitoring form is a tool used by contact centers to assess the quality of customer service calls. It’s a checklist that supervisors and QA teams use to prepare scorecards for evaluating agent performance.
Often, it includes a series of questions like “Did the agent greet the customer politely?” and each question or criterion is rated in a specific range (like 1 to 5 points) to prepare the report.
The form helps determine whether agents follow company guidelines and deliver the desired customer experience. It typically includes a set of criteria or questions to rate key aspects of the call, such as the agent’s politeness, problem-solving skills, and adherence to scripts.
Uses of a Call Quality Monitoring Form
The primary reasons for using a call quality monitoring form are:
- Quality control: It checks if your agents are doing things the right way, following company policies, and skillfully interacting with customers
- Training & coaching: You can utilize the feedback and information from a call quality monitoring form to develop targeted training and help agents get better at their job
- Improving customer service: Based on the feedback, you can spot areas of improvement and tweak your training or processes to enhance your customer service protocols and provide a better experience
- Compliance & regulations: Call monitoring ensures you follow the rules and regulations of treating customers correctly and upholding industry standards
- Performance reviews: You can review agent performance to recognize good work and identify weak points to work upon
- Customer insights: Get insights into customer trends, common issues, and what customers want to make informed business decisions
Benefits of a Call Quality Monitoring Form
1. Identify the Main Contributors to Customer Satisfaction
The call quality monitoring forms help you get key insights into service details and how an agent handles a call. This can help you identify factors that result in high CSAT ratings. Later, you can implement these insights throughout customer service to ensure consistency and positive results.
2. Create Process Compliance Reports
Create customized reports based on factors like SLAs, customer feedback, call transfers, and accuracy of the information shared. Based on this data, you can address gaps that prevent agents from delivering the best service experience.
3. Pay Attention to KPIs
The forms can help you monitor business, customer, and employee KPIs individually to ensure a well-rounded and effective customer service.
You can track KPIs like:
» Business KPIs: Agent turnover, net promoter score (NPS), CSAT, customer lifetime value
» Customer KPIs: Average handle time, abandonment rate, callback rate, first contact resolution
» Employee KPIs: Agent advocacy, rate of tech adoption, average monthly calls per agent
Key Elements of a Call Quality Monitoring Form
The call quality monitoring form may vary from business to business, depending on the end goal of the contact center. However, here are some key elements that every call quality monitoring form should have:
1. Customer & Agent Details
The form must include agent and customer details to ensure a thorough assessment of service quality.
Agent details:
» Name of the agent
» Agent ID/employee number
» Date and time of the call
» Call duration
Customer details:
» Customer name
» Customer ID/account number
» Contact information
2. Soft Skills
It’s important that the agent communicates smoothly with a focus on empathy, active listening, politeness, and friendliness with the customer. The form should also include areas that evaluate the agent’s ability to handle challenging situations with patience, care and professionalism.
Examples:
- Did the agent greet the customer within the first five seconds?
- Did the agent end the call politely?
- Did the agent speak professionally and at a good pace?
3. Process
The form should include points to understand if the agents are on the right track during customer interaction.
Examples:
- Did the agent follow your contact center’s standard operating procedures and guidelines?
- Did the agent adhere to call scripts, follow predefined procedures for data collection and customer handling?
- Did the agent use correct issue resolution processes?
4. Call Outcome
The call quality monitoring form should measure the effectiveness of agents’ problem-solving capabilities, track KPIs such as first call resolution rates, CSAT scores, and whether they efficiently meet customers’ needs.
Examples:
- Did the agent resolve the customer’s issue on the first call?
- Did the agent provide a clear and actionable solution to the client’s problem?
- Did the agent time follow-ups with the customer?
5. Compliance
To ensure agents adhere to company policies and industry regulations while interacting with customers, assess if they provide accurate information and protect customer data, maintaining ethical practices.
Examples:
- Did the agent verify the customer’s identity before sharing sensitive information?
- Did the agent provide only authorized and accurate information?
Call Monitoring Form Templates
Call monitoring form templates come in various types, tailored to meet the specific needs of the business. Here are a few types:
Template 1
This call monitoring form can help QA specialists evaluate agents’ language accuracy, comprehension, reasoning skills and the ability to build rapport. You can rate performance as exceptional, effective, below average, or needs improvement.
Template 2
This is an excel-based evaluation form to assess call quality and agent performance. It includes customizable yes/no and scoring questions, allowing QA teams to tailor evaluations to their needs.
Template 3
You can use this template to assess agents’ adherence to company policies and their ability to address customers’ needs with an appropriate tone of voice. The form also includes sections for observation, recommendation, and signatures from both the QA specialist and the employee.
How to Build a Call Quality Monitoring Form?
1. Define Evaluation Criteria & Objectives
Clearly outline the evaluation criteria and objectives to identify specific behaviors and actions demonstrating proficiency in each skill. This will ensure clarity and consistency in evaluations.
For example, the key objectives may include increasing CSAT score, adhering to quality standards, or improving first-call resolution rate.
2. Use Clear Sections & Rating Scales
Divide the call quality monitoring form into distinct segments to address different areas like issue resolution, agent behavior, and compliance with rules and regulations. This will help you to focus on specific areas and make the form more organized.
You can also use user-friendly rating scales or scorecards to simplify the evaluation process.
3. Incorporate Specific Metrics & Expectations
Include specific performance metrics to track key areas that impact customer satisfaction and overall contact center effectiveness. This will help you set benchmarks for agent performance and identify top performers and areas for improvement.
Here are some to include:
- Average response time: Set a specific time frame within which the agent should respond to customer inquiries
- Call duration: Aim for reasonable call durations to reduce customer wait times
- Issue resolution time: Focus on achieving quick and effective issue resolution to boost customer satisfaction
4. Include Open-Ended Questions
Incorporate open-ended questions alongside quantitative evaluations to get quantitative feedback and suggestions for improvement. Open-ended questions will help you get detailed insights and provide valuable agent feedback. Encourage evaluators to share specific instances where agents excelled or faced challenges and create targeted training to enhance agent skills and customer interactions.
5. Ensure Clarity of Instructions
Provide clear instructions to evaluators to maintain consistency and objectivity in evaluations. This will help standardize the evaluation process and ensure all agents are evaluated fairly.
6. Review & Refine the Form
Gather feedback regularly from evaluators and stakeholders to refine the form and adapt to changing business needs. Ask for feedback on the form’s usability and effectiveness. Analyze data and trends to spot areas of improvement.
Things to Avoid When Building a Call Quality Monitoring Form
Building an effective call monitoring form requires patience, customization, and an openness to feedback. To ensure it aligns with your contact center’s objectives, avoid making these mistakes:
» Rushing the process: It can result in a form that lacks clear objectives, planning, or well-defined criteria
» Copy-pasting: Copying another organization’s call monitoring form without considering your unique needs and requirements can lead to an ineffective tool
» Too many questions: Overly detailed QA forms can overwhelm evaluators and contribute to burnout. Avoid unnecessary questions and prioritize key factors that matter most to your contact center’s goals and customer experience.
» Lack of clarity: Ambiguous questions can lead to inconsistent evaluations. Ensure each question clearly defines what’s being assessed.
» Ignoring agent feedback: Neglecting agents’ feedback during the form creation process can result in a tool that fails to address their real challenges.
» Set and forget mentality: A call quality monitoring form should adapt to your contact center’s evolving needs and objectives. Viewing it as a one-time project without regular updates can result in stagnation and missed chances for improvement.
Ensure Superior Call Quality with Exotel
Exotel is an all-in-one AI-powered communication platform that improves customer experience across channels. The platform helps you maintain superior responsiveness and service quality as the business grows.
Some of its top features include:
- Smart IVR that allows customers to get information and make requests
- Real-time monitoring and reporting capabilities to evaluate agent performance and prevent non-compliance issues
- CRM Integration to provide agents with customer history and context for quick resolutions
- Predictive analytics to forecast future customer actions and interact accordingly
You can book a demo today to learn more about maintaining consistent call quality for your business.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is a Call Monitoring System?
A call monitoring system allows supervisors to listen to and assess interactions between customers and agents. It can record conversations, monitor live calls, and give detailed call insights.
2. What is Contact Center Monitoring?
It involves evaluating customer interactions, typically phone calls, to assess agent performance and improve customer service.
3. What are the Key Areas to Assess in Call Quality Assurance?
Some of the key areas assessed in call quality assurance include:
- Greeting & introduction
- Active listening
- Problem-solving skills
- Product knowledge
- Professionalism
- Compliance with policies