Fast-Tracking Quality Automation

When it comes to quality management, most contact centres today have what can be considered a basic program, with a lot of manual processes.

At PSCU, the largest credit union service organization in the United States, a partnership with NICE enabled the organization to fast-track its quality automation and mature its quality program in short order.

From Traditional Quality Management to an Automated Program

PSCU’s quality program has undergone extensive change over the last year. When it started its journey toward quality automation, PSCU had a very basic quality program with manual, labor-intensive processes. The quality team selected calls to score solely based on average duration, and there was no way to include the agent’s voice in the coaching process.

Calibrations took at least three hours of administrative work alone. Evaluation appeals—which numbered in the hundreds each month—were done in Microsoft Word docs, submitted via email, and tracked in Excel. Reporting capabilities were also minimal, with quality reports limited to quality scores.

Today, after implementing the NICE Quality Central and Analytics solutions, PSCU has made significant strides along its path to contact centre quality automation. Improvements include the ability to:

• Leverage metadata to expand its call labeling process. PSCU services 1,500 credit unions, so it was critical for PSCU to know who a call was for and the product line it was in reference to. PSCU was able to drill all the way down the VDN to see, for example, whether a caller was using a line specific to online banking or a debit card.

When that data was combined with agent-specific data from workforce management systems, PSCU was able to automate its quality assignment process right at the start, saving a significant amount of time that was formerly spent assigning agents and finding calls to score.

“It was quite interesting to be able to utilize data and tools that we actually already had in place that were being underutilized, so we tapped into our telephone system and our workforce system to pull in more specific details on these actual calls, who they were coming in through,” said Stephanie Lundstedt, Manager of Quality Assurance at PSCU.

• Give agents access to evaluations in real time. Agents can now request coaching and provide feedback on coaching. PSCU was also able to fully automate the calibration process, reducing the administration burden— “the system does the work for us,” Lundstedt said.
• Expand quality reporting beyond quality scores. PSCU was able to automate part of the reporting process as well.
• Automate the appeals process. “Of course you want to give agents and supervisors the opportunity to request additional research or opinions on the scores they received, so now our supervisors are able to do this in a much simpler way,” she said.

Key Steps in Change Management

PSCU took several important steps to ensure that the adoption of the NICE Quality Central and Analytics solutions would go smoothly (watch the third video in our series to learn about the key steps in change management for PSCU). Lundstedt and her team partnered with NICE to:

1. Gain consensus on the solutions they would implement.
2. Participate in an operational needs assessment.
3. Conduct follow-up sessions to ensure that the findings and recommendations were fully in line with PSCU executives’ objectives and goals for the program.
4. Implement change management and governance activities and ensure that the vision for success was supported by the executive sponsors. Key stakeholders were included throughout the process, from testing and a phased roll-out to full go-live. PSCU also continued to evolve its automation capabilities as it rolled out Quality Central and Analytics.

Moving up the Maturity Model

These changes enabled PSCU to move up the maturity model from Basic to Operating, with product gains as PSCU automated its program. (Learn more about PSCU’s maturity model progression in our fourth video.)

“Where we’re headed is Performing,” Lundstedt said. “That’s where you can get both product and process gains with a metric-driven quality program.”

Lessons Learned

After the project wrapped up, teams from PSCU and NICE documented what went well. Among the key learnings:

• The project team was organized and communicated frequently with full transparency on the solutions.
• Network and telecom teams were fully active during the implementation, proving how skilled and responsive they are.
• Executive sponsors were highly involved in the implementation and roll-out. Their support and drive was essential for full (and fast) value realization.
• Key stakeholders were dedicated to the project’s success; this was the driving force in the roll-out, communication and optimization.