Call center auditing has existed ever since it was possible to obtain call recordings. The constant advancements in technology have made it an evolving process.
Automated quality assurance is the current trending buzzword in the call quality monitoring space.
More than 65% of contact centers keep Quality Management as part of their top 3 KPIs. -8x8
But does it have the power to pack a punch compared to the hype created? Let’s compare manual and automated QA to understand whether automation changes the way quality monitoring is done in a call center.
How Automated QA Ensures Call Center Cost Reduction?
What is Call Center Call Monitoring?
Call center call monitoring is the process of reviewing customer calls to ensure that experience delivery standards are maintained by the agent.
This can be done in mainly two different ways - manual and automated.
Manual call monitoring uses human auditors to review and audit customer calls. On the other hand, automated QA uses AI-based software to go through customer calls and review them.
Let’s look at the differences between manual and automated QA now.
How Does Manual QA Shine?
In manual call center QA, auditors review agent-customer interactions and suggest changes and feedback to improve agent performance as well as customer experience.
There have been considerable changes in manual call monitoring technology, but the core process remained the same.
Auditors still listen to call recordings and manually take notes. These notes are then updated on the agent database.
Let’s understand the benefits of manual quality assurance in a contact center.
1. Improve Agent Performance
Auditors analyze agent-customer interactions for areas that don’t meet the standards set by the contact center. Auditors can inform agents on what areas they need to improve on.
Feedback loops allow agents to improve with each interaction and ensure their experience delivery is on point. It also helps call centers to provide a consistent experience to customers irrespective of the agent they’re interacting with.
Despite the time-consuming nature of manual auditing, it allows for targeted and detailed insights into performance.
2. Improve Customer Experience Delivery
As mentioned above, one of the immediate improvements of manual auditing is enhancing the quality of agent-customer interactions.
Since agents are informed about what they need to improve in their experience delivery, customers will face better support, increasing customer satisfaction.
3. Give Actionable Insights
Since auditors go through calls from different agents, they’ve an idea of the entire contact center’s performance. Auditors can get insights into which agents are lacking and those performing exceptionally well.
These eagle-eyed insights help managers make decisions about the call center’s functioning.
Now that we’ve understood the benefits of manual QA, let’s look at what automated QA offers.
Results first, payment later.
What Does Automated Call Center Monitoring Software Offer?
Automated call monitoring software uses machine learning and speech analysis to review agent-customer interactions and provide feedback to elevate agent performance.
Apart from auditing calls, automated call monitoring software also audits agent-customer interactions that happen on chat, email, and social media. This makes it a comprehensive solution for omnichannel contact centers.
Automated QA improves the relatively slower manual auditing process in many ways. Let’s have a look at some of the improvements.
1. Audit All Your Interactions
With automated call monitoring software, you can have all your agent-customer interactions vs. the 1-2% covered in manual auditing. A single software can audit interactions across various channels, while different teams of auditors need to be assigned to each support channel for manual auditing.
Having all calls audited helps understand an agent’s performance over time rather than using individual calls to assess their performance.
For those still having doubts about automated QA, here’s something to calm your mind.
These tools also notify auditors when there are compliance violations or calls that require their immediate attention. This creates an additional review process for calls that need further attention.
2. Elevated Agent Coaching
The nature of automated call monitoring software combing all agent-customer interactions helps enhance the agent coaching process. These tools can identify agents that have been performing consistently well.
Using these agents as a benchmark, automated QA tools can suggest agents who need improvement to learn from consistently performing agents. This helps agents to improve by learning from interactions that meet the required standards.
3. A Complete Overview
A study found that 35% of participants believed new technologies must be implemented to achieve their analytics requirements. No extra analytical tools are required in a contact center that has deployed automated call monitoring software.
Since automated QA tools have 100% audit rates, you can get a comprehensive and detailed overview of your call center’s performance. This allows call centers to get a complete perspective instead of a pigeonhole perspective limited by manual auditing.
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We’ve seen the benefits of both manual and automated QA. Now let us look at which one is better.
Manual vs. Automated QA
Now that you know the difference between manual and automated call monitoring, let’s compare them in different aspects and then decide which is better.
1. Reviewing Calls
Manual auditing can give detailed reviews for each call compared to the general review done by call monitoring software. When the number of calls audited is compared, manual auditing falls behind automated QA in an unmeasurable manner.
Winner: Manual auditing can give reviews of better quality, but automated QA is the clear winner regarding the number of calls reviewed.
2. Flagging Compliance Violations
The time-consuming nature of manual auditing allows many calls to go unaudited, leaving the possibility of unnoticed compliance violations. Since automated call monitoring software audits every call, all compliance violations are flagged.
Winner: Automated QA
3. Agent Coaching
Manual auditing informs agents of what areas to improve, but there must be instructions. On the other hand, automated tools can assign interactions agents can learn from based on the score.
Winner: Manual auditing takes the proper steps but can’t match automated QA.
Who’s The Winner In Call Monitoring?
It can seem like automated QA overshadows manual auditing at a glimpse, but there is some more prying to be done.
Completely removing human auditors from the equation of call monitoring is not a recommended option. The involvement of humans helps to evaluate critical cases like compliance violations or calls with an extremely low score.
Human auditors can also review extreme cases and aid automated call monitoring software, as the accuracy of automated tools is around 85%.
Rather than having automated call monitoring software take over auditing completely, using manual auditing to complement automated call quality software shows better results.
The combination of human auditing and automated call center monitoring software can greatly raise quality assurance levels. Let us look at some good call-monitoring software options.
Top Call Monitoring Software Options
The rise of artificial intelligence has also impacted the customer experience industry. Here are some of the best call monitoring software in the contact center space.
1. Klaus
Klaus is a cloud-based contact center solution that focuses on helping organizations improve their customer experience delivery and boost agent performance.
Here are a few key features of the call monitoring software offered by Klaus.
Tech Integration - Deploying Klaus in your organization allows for seamless integrations with existing tools like CRMs, helpdesk, and call systems.
Compliance Management - The software has compliance management features, ensuring industry regulations and standards are followed in each customer interaction.
Real-Time Monitoring - Klaus monitors customer interactions in real-time so managers can evaluate agent performance as it happens.
User-Friendly Interface - The user-friendly interface is intuitive, allowing for easy usage and navigation.
Customizable Evaluation Forms - The software's customizable evaluation forms allow each organization to tailor it for their specific needs.
Feedback & Coaching - Klaus provides agents with instant feedback and coaching so they can improve their performance in real-time.
Automated Reporting - The software's automated reporting helps managers to be updated with the latest call center QA metrics. Apart from being automated, these reports can also be customized to show the metrics that matter.
2. Talkdesk
Talkdesk is a cloud-based contact center software providing businesses with a suite of tools aimed at delivering excellent customer experiences. Talkdesk's intuitive interface and flexible architecture help businesses in managing and optimizing their omnichannel customer interactions.
Here are a few key features of the call monitoring software offered by Talkdesk.
Intelligent Omnichannel Interactions - Talkdesk's omnichannel contact center platform enables customer interaction across multiple channels like phone, chat, email, and social media. This helps organizations in providing seamlessly integrated customer experience irrespective of how customers interact with them.
AI-Powered Voice Analytics - Talkdesk's AI-powered voice analytic capabilities provide businesses with relevant insights. These insights help businesses to improve customer experience, increase sales and reduce churn.
Real-time Reporting - The software provides real-time reporting capabilities helping businesses to track critical quality indicators like call volume and average handling time (AHT). This information is crucial to identify areas for improvement and enhance overall performance.
Advanced Call Routing and IVR - Talkdesk's advanced call routing and IVR capabilities help businesses to route calls and other interactions to the correct agent or department, considering factors like language, wait time, and availability.
Automated workflows - The software's automation capabilities help businesses to automate repetitive tasks and processes, reducing the possibilities of errors and allowing agents to work on more complex tasks.
3. Convin
Convin.ai is a revolutionary call center monitoring software that provides analytics, real-time feedback, and personalized training to enhance agent performance. Convin's user-friendly interface helps businesses streamline the call quality assurance process, enabling managers to evaluate, monitor, and guide their sales and service reps.
Here are a few key features of the call monitoring software offered by Convin.
Advanced Analytics - Convin collects data from calls and provides detailed insights into call performance by scoring each call, helping managers understand improvement areas.
Integration With CRM & Phone Systems - Convin.ai seamlessly integrates with popular CRM and phone systems, allowing managers to use a centralized platform to view call data and agent performance.
Automated Quality Assurance - Convin provides automated QA that audits 100% of customer interactions across chats, calls, and emails. These insights generated by Convin are used to derive insights like win-loss behavior analysis and customer intelligence.
Automated Coaching - The software uses artificial intelligence to create personalized training and development plans based on an agent's strengths and weaknesses.
Easy To Use Interface - Convin's user-friendly and navigable platform makes it easy for customer service managers to provide agent feedback and monitor calls.
Quality Management System - The platform allows auditors to selectively conduct manual audits with system-recommended conversation lists, providing seamless and efficient quality assurance experiences.
Automated Compliance Monitoring - Convin ensures that your call center is compliant with industry regulations and standards by providing detailed reports with archiving capabilities.
Learning Management System - Convin's learning management system contains an in-house library complete with assessments and automated coaching to reduce ramp-up times up to 60%.
4. Aircall
Aircall is a cloud-based contact center solution that provides an all-in-one option for businesses that want to improve customer service and sales operations.
Here are a few key features of the call monitoring software offered by Aircall.
Tech Integrations - Aircall integrates with various popular applications, including CRMs, ticketing systems, and project management tools. This helps organizations streamline workflows and improve efficiency.
IVR and Voice Recognition - The software's IVR system provides customers with a self-service option for essential queries, freeing agents and increasing customer satisfaction. The voice recognition feature makes it easy for customers to navigate the IVR and quickly get their required information.
Real-Time Analytics - Aircall provides real-time insights into key performance indicators like call volume, call duration, and agent performance. This helps businesses to monitor and optimize contact center operations.
Cloud-Based Phone System - The software offers a fully-integrated phone system that provides a professional and seamless customer experience. Features like call routing, hold music, and call transfers help businesses streamline their phone operations and improving customer service.
Automated Call Distribution - Aircall's automated call distribution feature ensures that calls get routed to the most appropriate agent by considering factors like skill set, language, and availability. This helps businesses to increase first call resolution (FCR) rates and reduce customer wait times.
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5. Nice CX
Nice CX is a call center quality assurance software that provides call analysis and real-time monitoring. It offers many features to empower agents to provide an excellent customer experience.
Here are a few key features of the call monitoring software offered by Nice CX.
Call Recording and Analysis - Nice CX provides call recording and analysis, helping managers to evaluate customer interaction quality and identify areas to be improved on.
Multi-Channel Support - The software supports multiple channels, including chats, voice calls, emails and social media, making it a truly omnichannel monitoring software.
Integration - Nice CX integrates with many tools, including CRM, cloud communication software and other third-party applications, to become a seamless and efficient call center solution.
Workforce Optimization - The software helps managers in optimizing their workforce with actionable insights that help to improve productivity and efficiency in the call center.
Quality Management - Nice CX provides a solution for quality management by automating the evaluation process and ensuring consistent scoring.
Analytics and Reporting - The software has advanced analytics and reporting abilities, tracking key metrics to help managers make decisions that are data-driven.
Customizable Workflows - Nice CX provides customizable workflows which help managers to tailor the software to meet the specific needs of their organization.
Real-Time Monitoring - The software has real-time monitoring capabilities that allow managers to identify areas for improvement and address any issues quickly.
6. Scorebuddy
Scorebuddy is an extensive call center quality assurance software that streamlines and automates the quality monitoring process. With Scorebuddy, organizations monitor omnichannel agent-customer interactions in real-time and identify areas for improvement to make data-driven decisions.
Here are a few key features of the call monitoring software offered by Scorebuddy.
Customizable Evaluation Criteria - Scorebuddy offers a huge range of evaluation criteria that can be tailored to each organization's needs. These criteria can be used in assessing agent performance and ensuring compliance with regard to company policies.
Integration With Existing Systems - The software integrates seamlessly with existing call center tools for easy deployment.
Real-Time Monitoring - Scorebuddy allows managers to monitor interactions in real-time, enabling them to provide instant feedback to agents.
Advanced Analytics - Scorebuddy provides call centers with advanced analytics and reporting capabilities that include trend analysis and forecasts. This enables organizations to make informed decisions regarding operations and experience delivery.
Automated Reporting - The software generates automated reports with insights into agent performance, call quality, and compliance with industry regulations.
Customizable Dashboards - Scorebuddy provides dashboards that can be customized to meet each oganization's needs. These dashboards provide visual representations of call metrics and key performance indicators, making it easy for managers to make data-driven decisions based on performance.
7. Playvox
Playvox is a cloud-based call center quality assurance and gamification platform helping companies to improve customer service, agent engagement, and performance.
Here are a few key features of the call monitoring software offered by Playvox.
Quality Assessment - Playvox's quality assessment tool offers an exhaustive evaluation of agent's performance based on key performance indicators defined by the organization.
Agent Coaching & Feedback - The platform provides real-time feedback and coaches agents, helping them to improve their skills and performance.
Multi-Channel Support - Playvox enables organizations to monitor calls, voice, email, chat, and social media.
Reporting & Analytics - The software offers an extensive set of reports and analytics that enable companies to measure their call center performance, identify gaps in knowledge, and track progress over time.
Customizable Platform - Playvox is highly customizable which allows organizations to tailor it according to their specific need.
Gamification - The software incorporates elements of gamification like leaderboards, rewards, and badges to keep agents motivated and engaged.
Integration - Playvox can be integrated with popular call center tools and platforms, including Twilio, Salesforce, and Zendesk, making it easily usable.
8. Tethr
Tethr is a cloud-based call monitoring software aiming to revolutionize experience delivery by providing organizations with powerful insights and intelligence.
Here are a few key features of the call monitoring software offered by Tethr.
Quality Management - Tethr provides various quality management features enabling managers to monitor, evaluate, and provide agent feedback in real-time.
Customizable Dashboards - The software's customizable dashboards allow businesses to provide data insights tailored to their needs.
Voice Analytics - Tethre provides advanced analytics that helps in identifying patterns and trends in customer behavior.
Coaching & Feedback - The software provides real-time feedback on agents' calls, helping them develop the skills needed to improve their experience delivery.
Reporting & Analytics - Tethr provides multiple reporting and analytic tools that help businesses in measuring and evaluating their experience delivery. These tools also make it easy to make data-driven decisions.
Integration - The software integrates seamlessly with various call center third-party applications like customer relationship management, business phone system, and other technologies making it easily implementable.
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10. Callminer
Callminer is a cloud-based call center quality monitoring software that helps businesses in enhancing experience delivery with real-time speech analytics, call grading, and training tools.
Here are a few key features of the call monitoring software offered by Callminer.
Call Grading - Callminer's advanced call grading feature allows managers to assess their agents' performance providing them with a comprehensive overview of their strengths and areas for improvement.
Cloud-Based - Since Callminer is cloud-based, it provides businesses with flexible and scalable solutions that can be easily deployed in a call center.
Dashboards & Report - The software's range of customizable dashboards and reports allows businesses to get clear data on performance, trends, and customer feedback.
Speech Analytics - Callminer's advanced speech analytics software provides businesses with detailed insights into customer interactions. The technology identifies trends, customer sentiment, and areas of improvement.
Compliance - The software's compliance features help businesses to ensure that they adhere to industry regulations and quality standards.
Integration - Callminer seamlessly integrates with enterprise applications such as CRM, helpdesk, and analytic tools to provide businesses with a single view of customer interactions.
Coaching Tools - The software's coaching tools enable agents to continuously improve their performance with real-time feedback.
With so many call monitoring software options are available today, call center managers just need to choose which software is right for their call center. Leveraging technology and complementing it with human efforts will rapidly boost your contact center performance.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is manual auditing in a contact center?
Manual auditing analyzes agent-customer interactions to check whether experience delivery benchmarks are met.
2. What is automated call monitoring software?
Automated call monitoring software relies on machine learning and behavioral analysis to automate the auditing process.
3. Is automated QA better than manual QA?
Automated QA accelerates the audit process and gets faster results than manual auditing. Instead of crowning automated quality assurance tools as better than manual auditing, using both in tandem can help get better results.
