Call Center Quality Assurance Checklist [With Examples]

A call center quality assurance checklist is a collection of standards that should be used to evaluate the overall call center’s performance.
 

A quality assurance checklist is essential for maintaining outstanding customer experiences(CX) to rise in the marketplace. A quality assurance checklist helps team leaders, supervisors, and managers track how well their agents perform.

The checklist allows call center managers and supervisors to identify weaknesses in agent performance. Whether it’s poor communication, inadequate product knowledge, or the failure to follow the company protocols, checklists highlight the areas that require attention and improvement.

A well-defined QA checklist provides standardized guidelines for agents to follow, ensuring that each customer receives the same high level of service regardless of the agent they speak with. It helps maintain consistency in the quality of customer interactions.

A well-defined QA checklist provides standardized guidelines for agents to follow, ensuring that each customer receives the same high level of service regardless of the agent they speak with. It helps maintain consistency in the quality of customer interactions.

Evaluate how well the agents initiate the call. The first impression sets the tone of the entire call. So, check how agents greet the customer and whether they set a positive tone for the interaction.

Communication skills are not just about how well the agents talk; they also include how great they are as listeners. Do your agents understand properly what customers are saying? Do they listen to the issues attentively and ask relevant questions for more clarification?
 

Use AI-powered call transcription for automated call transcription in detail to help you understand the conversations in seconds. You won't have to listen to long conversations, just to ensure everything is going well or not. 

Check the communication skills of agents, both verbally and in written form. Include speech clarity and questioning abilities, and check whether an agent is professional during the interaction. 

Evaluate whether the agents have the proper knowledge about the services or products. Ensure they can provide accurate and relevant information to customers. 

Evaluate the agent’s problem-solving skills and ability to efficiently and effectively address customer issues. Ensure agents can offer the proper resolution as soon as possible.

Check how well the agents manage the call, including call control, call quality, and the use of the right tool and system. Call handling includes answering the call, addressing customer concerns, providing solutions, and effectively closing the conversation.

Evaluate the agent’s politeness, empathy, and attitude toward the customers. Check whether agents create a positive and friendly customer experience or not. Agents can be empathetic while handling angry customers and giving them what they want while following the company’s policies. 

Ensure agents follow the call center protocols, call scripts, and any other industry legal regulations. Adhering to the legal standards is a must. Ensure the checklist for the call center’s quality assurance includes questionnaires for compliance and adherence checks.

Assess the agent’s ability to accurately document the customer interactions. Documentation includes a conclusion for calls, actions taken during the call, a schedule for the follow-up, if any, and any particular customer requests.
 

Agents should be able to record the essential insights from the interaction using call notes and tags. Call centers can use call disposition tools for more automated and easier documentation.

Evaluate how the agents conclude the call. Inspect whether your agents summarize the key points and ask for feedback at the end of the call. Offering more assistance makes the customer experience.

Ensure customer satisfaction through the post-call surveys, feedback, or the overall quality of the customer experience. Ask for client feedback or other metrics like customer satisfaction score (CSAT score).

A call center quality assurance checklist for customer service is essential to ensure consistent service delivery, standardize expectations, and evaluate agent performance.

Define what and how you want to offer the services, discuss the expected outcome, choose the criteria carefully, and update the checklist when necessary. Additionally, share the goals with the teams to work together and assign the right role to the right person.

Set clear goals aligning with your business purpose, customer needs, and key metrics. Once you have a clear idea of your desired outcome, you can design a checklist accordingly. You may include to focus on faster response time, improved customer satisfaction, or maintaining brand tone.

Clearly share the desired outcomes with your team, like how agents should greet, resolve issues, and improve customer satisfaction. Being specific ensures everyone works toward the same high-quality goals.

While creating a question for your checklist, ensure each criterion evaluates a clear and specific behavior. Categorize questions into clear groups like compliance or resolutions. Ensure all categories are clear, measurable, and aligned with your service goals. 
 

For instance, ' Greeting and Opening” could assess if the agent introduced themselves properly. Simple categorization evaluates the quality faster.

Assign the right person to handle QA reviews. Clearly define roles based on the skills and capacity. Use AI tools to boost the monitoring process and bring consistency while saving time.

Clearly communicate the purpose of the QA checklist with your team. Train agents on how the checklist and evaluations work. So, when agents understand and feel involved, they will likely be more open to feedback and improvement.

Decide how to select which call or chat to review randomly or choose the one with low customer satisfaction (CSAT), or check high-priority issues. You may also use AI to spot conversations with negative sentiment and positive sentiment, ensuring to include both every day and special cases for review. 

Hold regular sessions where reviewers review calls together to align on what each rating means. This helps eliminate subjectivity and keeps everyone on the same page. Calibration helps to keep reviews fair, consistent, and accurate across the team.

Monitor customer feedback and performance metrics to spot trends and areas of improvement. Use tools like QA scorecards to measure agent performance and identify coaching opportunities. Also, regularly review the checklist to ensure it includes all the necessary evaluation criteria- update it if anything is missing. 

Set measurable goals to track call center quality, motivate agents, leverage AI tools for real-time monitoring, and provide accessible resources for optimal service.

QA metrics and KPIs help measure and track call center performance. Select the right metrics and KPIs that align with your call center’s objectives and help to improve your call center's overall productivity. 

• First Call Resolution: It shows how often the issues are resolved in a single interaction without any follow-ups. The higher the FCR shows, the higher the customer satisfaction and the efficiency.
• Average Handle Time: The average time agents spend handling a customer’s calls to resolve their issues. AHT begins when a customer calls and finishes when the agent ends the call after providing a resolution.
• Call Abandonment Rate: It shows the number of people hanging up while on the call queue. A higher call abandonment rate indicates the need for a callback in your call center or for efficient agents.
• First Response Time (FRT): It measures how fast an agent attends to the call. It helps to monitor how active agents stay in the call centers to take the calls faster. It’s better if the call center follows the 80/20 rule.
• Customer Satisfaction Score: The Csat score indicates if the customer was satisfied or not be calculated using surveys or the purchases made.

Agents are the foundation for delivering the best service and the success of your call center. So, organize training programs for your employees to let them know what is expected from them and how they will be evaluated.

The training program can include training for improving conversation, learning customer behaviors, and keeping them updated with information required to help customers.

Most call center software offers automated call recording and real-time monitoring, making it easier for managers to evaluate agents and call center performance. Analyzing calls helps to identify the areas of improvement, track customer satisfaction, and ensure agents meet expectations.

Call centers can use AI tools like speech analytics, sentiment analysis, and call summaries to evaluate customer interactions. These tools help call centers improve performance, increase customer satisfaction, and simplify quality checks.
 

You can use calilio for a call center phone system, which provides AI-powered tools, such as the reason for the call, sentiment analysis, call transcription, and call summary to analyze customer-agent interactions in real-time.

Use the right contact center solution that allows you to maintain consistent communication across various channels. It includes phone calls, email, live chat, social media, sms, and any other platform customers use to reach out.

Recognize and reward the best performing agents to maintain a healthy working environment for agents. Offering rewards like bonuses, extra time off, or public recognition makes agents feel valued and motivates them to do their best.

Practices like this are very important in a call center, where stress and burnout are common. Regularly recognize top performers so that agents work their best to maintain and meet the high standards and ensure consistent service quality.

Regularly update resources and ensure agents have access to them. Agents are more likely to make accurate decisions and follow your call center’s QA standards. Resources like call scripts, standard procedures (SOPs), product information, and troubleshooting guides.

Investigate thoroughly to find the root cause of any issues after it is solved or being solved. Root cause analysis helps to prevent the future occurrence of the same issues and saves time that otherwise would be spent resolving the repeated issues.

Agents' involvement improves the quality assurance process. As the quality of a call center is directly dependent upon the agents, it encourages agents to self-assess and self-monitor, enabling them to perform their best as they know what is expected from them. 

The QA scorecard monitors and improves agent performance, enhancing customer satisfaction and aligning business goals. Use the scorecard to measure the success and failure of your qa checklist.

A sales QA checklist must assess the agent’s skill in establishing rapport, demonstrating product advantages, addressing objections, and effectively closing the sale. Key metrics could involve upsell success rates and compliance with sales scripts. 

Quality in a customer support center depends upon the agents. The checklist should focus on the call center soft skills like greeting customers, empathy, active listening, politeness, and maintaining a friendly tone.

Check the scripts, clear steps, technical expertise, documentation, and the ability to provide technical assistance should be included in the QA checklist. It also ensures agents document the issues for further reference or create support tickets for complex and remaining issues. 

A checklist for inbound calls should include whether the agents understand the reason for the call and if they can address the specific needs. The list should prioritize speed, active listening, and the ability to handle unexpected questions and escalations, along with customer satisfaction.

Outbound calls typically include sales calls, follow-ups, or survey inquiries. The QA checklist for outbound calls should emphasize how the agent starts the conversation and their skill in capturing the caller's attention.

A call center needs a well-prepared checklist to maintain quality assurance of the call center. By focusing on key areas like effective communication, problem resolution, and compliance, call centers can enhance customer satisfaction, improve agent performance, and boost overall operational efficiency. Moreover, implementing a solid QA strategy helps build long-lasting customer relationships and contributes to the success and growth of your call center.

Use Calilio for call center monitoring and ensure top-quality service in your call center.  The best call center solution offers the basic tools to help you maintain quality. The AI-powered call reports include detailed call transcription, sentiment analysis, and real-time analytics to help supervisors monitor the call and work on improving the overall performance of agents. Sign up now for Calilio!
 

Establishing a clear quality assurance strategy is vital for business success. Assign quality assurance responsibilities to a designated person or take on that role yourself. Regularly monitor customer support channels to gauge satisfaction and define essential behaviors for your team. Providing feedback and coaching encourages ongoing improvement, while tracking these advancements helps measure progress and refine your strategies.