Tips to Use QA to Fix Broken Processes

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Quality assurance (QA) in contact centres is often viewed as a way to measure agent performance. But not all service issues are down to individual agents.

Sometimes, agents are working around flawed processes just to keep things moving. By using QA more effectively, you can uncover and fix these broken processes, improving both operations and customer experience.

To find out more about common contact centre broken processes, we asked Chris Mounce, Quality and Coaching Specialist at evaluagent, to explain how some failures aren’t the agents’ fault.

Video: Call Centre Broken Processes: When Failures Aren’t the Agents’ Fault

Watch the video below to hear Chris explain how when it comes to common contact centre broken processes, some failures aren’t the agents’ fault:

With thanks to Chris Mounce, Quality and Coaching Specialist at evaluagent, for contributing to this video.

This video was originally published in our article ‘Key Signs of Broken Processes (and How to Fix Them)’

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Three Tips to Use QA to Fix Broken Processes

When used well, QA helps identify where processes, not just people, are falling short.

“It’s easy to see quality assurance as focusing on agent performance, but failures aren’t always a result of agent action, or inaction.”

So with this in mind, here are three practical ways to do this:

1. Look Beyond Agent Mistakes

Not every quality issue is the agent’s fault, and skilled agents often create workarounds when faced with poor systems or broken workflows.

“Skilled agents will quickly find ways to accomplish something and minimize any negative impact on the customer experience.

Sometimes this will actually mean circumventing broken processes, but if you have no means of identifying where, and when, this is happening it’s difficult to fix that process.”

While this keeps service levels up, it can hide the real problem. QA needs to help spot where these fixes are being used, so the underlying issue can be addressed properly.

2. Add Root Cause Options to QA Scorecards

Track why issues are happening, not just what happened. Include a list of common root causes in your QA scorecards.

“As part of scoring, when you find quality failures, you should add root cause reasons to a scorecard. And as a bonus tip, these root cause reasons should be pre-decided and categorized, so they can be easily reported on.”

This lets evaluators quickly identify whether an issue was caused by process failure, system design, or another factor. Standardizing this makes it easier to analyse patterns across multiple evaluations.

3. Avoid Free-Text for Root Causes

Keep reporting consistent and easy to analyse, as Chris explains:

“Giving evaluators free rein over root cause reasons will not only encourage more subjectivity, but it will also give you lots of data, and it’ll be difficult to extrapolate and gain insight from it.”

If evaluators are left to enter their own explanations each time, the data will vary too much to be useful. Predefined categories ensure you gather clear, structured insights, making it easier to act on what QA reveals.

If you are looking for more great insights from the experts, check out these next:

Author
Robyn Coppell

Robyn Coppell has worked as Digital Content Manager for Call Center Helper since 2021. After University her first job was in a contact centre and has stayed in this space ever since.

She has experience of contact centre operational management, software systems, css and php coding. She edits a lot of the guest content that is published on Call Centre Helper.

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