It comes as no surprise that delivering exceptional customer service is crucial for maintaining a competitive edge. For call centers and customer service operations, ensuring the quality of customer interactions is paramount. This is where "Quality Assurance as a Service" (QAaaS) comes into play.
In this post, we'll delve into what QAaaS is and how it works in the context of a call center or customer service environment.
What is Quality Assurance as a Service (QAaaS)?
Quality Assurance as a Service (QAaaS) is a strategic approach that organizations adopt to maintain and enhance the quality of their customer interactions, whether through phone calls, live chat, email, or other communication channels. It involves outsourcing or leveraging external resources and technology solutions to assess, monitor, and improve the quality of customer service.
In a QAaaS model, organizations partner with third-party service providers who specialize in evaluating and enhancing the quality of customer interactions. These providers bring expertise, technology, and a systematic approach to evaluate customer service performance, identify areas for improvement, and ensure compliance with established standards and guidelines.
How QAaaS Works in a Call Center or Customer Service Environment
Outsourced Quality Assessment - One of the primary aspects of QAaaS is the outsourcing of quality assessment tasks. Call centers often record customer interactions, including phone calls, chat sessions, and emails. QAaaS providers take on the responsibility of reviewing these recorded interactions to assess the quality of customer service delivery. These external QA teams are typically composed of trained professionals who follow predefined criteria and key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate customer interactions objectively. By outsourcing this task, call centers can benefit from an unbiased perspective and ensure consistent quality evaluation.
Scalability - Call center volumes can fluctuate significantly due to seasonality, marketing campaigns, or unexpected events. QAaaS offers scalability, allowing organizations to adjust their quality assessment efforts in response to changing call volumes and business needs. During peak periods, call centers can quickly ramp up their QA resources to maintain the same level of service quality. Conversely, during quieter times, they can scale down QA efforts, thus optimizing operational costs.
Compliance and Regulation Adherence - In highly regulated industries such as finance or healthcare, compliance with industry-specific regulations is critical. QAaaS providers play a vital role in ensuring contact centers adhere to these regulations when handling customer interactions. They conduct evaluations with a keen focus on compliance requirements, identifying any instances of non-compliance and recommending corrective actions. This helps organizations avoid legal issues, penalties, and reputational damage.
Cost Efficiency - Outsourcing quality assurance can be a cost-effective solution for call centers. It eliminates the need to hire and train an in-house QA team, reducing labor costs and overhead expenses. Organizations can also choose to pay for QA services on a per-use or subscription basis, aligning costs with their specific needs.
Continuous Improvement - QAaaS providers don't just assess performance; they also offer valuable feedback and recommendations for improvement. They help call centers identify weaknesses in their customer service processes, agent training programs, and communication strategies. By providing actionable insights, QAaaS facilitates continuous improvement. Call centers can implement changes based on the feedback received, ensuring they consistently deliver exceptional customer service.
Flexibility - QAaaS is flexible and can be tailored to meet the specific needs and goals of each call center. Providers can focus on particular aspects of quality, such as script adherence, empathy, problem resolution, or adherence to brand voice and messaging. This flexibility allows call centers to align QA efforts with their unique customer service objectives and areas of concern.
Examples of QAaaS in Action
To illustrate the practical application of QAaaS, let's consider a few real-world examples:
Example 1: A Mid-Sized Retailer A retailer with a robust retail and online network leverages their call center to support both customers and their store staff alike. They rely on their call center operation to address inquiries, resolve issues, and support the retail network with more complex requirements. To maintain high-quality customer service across a diverse team of agents working from home, they partner with a QAaaS provider. The QAaaS provider conducts regular evaluations of recorded customer and branch staff interactions, assessing factors like issue resolution, adherence to service protocols, and the overall customer experience. They identify areas where agents excel and provide specific feedback for improvement. As a result, this specialized retailer consistently delivers superior customer service, leading to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Example 2: A Healthcare Provider A healthcare provider operates a call center responsible for scheduling appointments, answering patient queries, and addressing appointment-related concerns. To handle increased volume, they outsourced part of their operation to a Near Shore BPO call center provider.
In the highly regulated healthcare industry, compliance and patient confidentiality are top priorities. The QAaaS provider conducts evaluations of recorded calls across both centers, focusing on adherence to healthcare regulations and patient privacy guidelines, as well as the overall patient experience. Most importantly, any instances where the patient experience was not ideal are swiftly escalated for immediate attention. This proactive approach not only safeguards the healthcare provider's reputation but also maintains patient trust and satisfaction.
Conclusion
Quality Assurance as a Service (QAaaS) has emerged as a strategic solution for organizations seeking to maintain and enhance the quality of their customer interactions in call centers and customer service environments. By outsourcing quality assessment tasks to specialized providers, businesses can achieve scalability, objectivity, cost efficiency, and access to data-driven insights.
Sharon Oatway is a Customer Service, Sales, and Marketing professional with more than three decades of hands-on experience elevating the overall customer experience along with multi-channel contact center performance. As President & Chief Experience Officer of VereQuest, Sharon and her team have listened to, read, and analyzed several million customer interactions for some of North America’s leading brands. As a result, Sharon is a recognized thought leader in what it takes to build and sustain great customer experiences.
To learn more about how VereQuest can help you build the best call center quality assurance program, go to:
https://www.verequest.com/contact-center-training: Review our library of best in class call center soft skill training modules. It is fully customizable and has no individual learner fees.
https://www.verequest.com/contact-center-qa-software: Schedule a demo of VereQuest's multi-channel quality assurance software that helps focus coaching attention and remove effort from your processes. No individual user fees.
https://www.verequest.com/outsourced-quality-assurance: Discover if outsourcing your quality assurance is the right decision for your organization.