Sales Opportunities for Quality Monitoring

Today, voice recording is included in most dealer portfolios either to help the customer meet financial compliance regulations or simply to verify telephone transactions. Another common driver occurs when the customer migrates to IP telephony and must deploy IP recording software. However, the real profit margin today involves pro-active selling of broader solutions with recording as the core.

 

Quality monitoring (QM) helps to measure and improve agent performance and analyze business processes. Instead of just using the voice recorder as a distress purchase for compliance and protection from liability, it can be integrated with these value-added applications to create a compelling ROI proposition.  

 

Although dedicated QM solutions are well known, they are still used by a relatively small number of contact centers. Many still employ side-by-side coaching or manually record and evaluate calls with paper-based systems or third-party software such as Excel or Access. Managers tasked with achieving quality goals using these techniques will regularly acknowledge its limitations and the benefits of a dedicated QM software solution.

 

QM works on top of voice and screen recording and allows scheduling of the recording to capture a pre-defined assortment of communications. A user portal lets supervisors replay their agents’ calls and fill out an electronic scorecard as they listen to each one. The call and scorecard are then saved for subsequent coaching or reports on the performance of groups or individuals.

 

In addition to voice recording and an evaluation package, today’s standard QM solution should be upgraded to include audio analytics to spot keywords or for emotion detection to trigger evaluation of the call. This capability helps larger organizations handle an otherwise unmanageable number of conversations.

 

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI (News - Alert) DSS) is also creating new standards for QM and recording systems by prohibiting the preservation or ensuring safe storage of credit card data.

 

To meet PCI DSS, these solutions offer encryption of recorded calls and are configured to pause or stop recording to prevent gathering of especially sensitive data such as the Card Validation Code. Dealers who consult with the customer and deliver this added value will benefit from increased revenues and profits.

 

Quality monitoring software itself is also changing rapidly. One major trend involves its convergence with other contact center applications ranging from Workforce Management to holistic Workforce Optimization Suites (WFO) to provide a unique insight into all contact center processes.

 

QM software benefits contact centers of any size or type of operation. By making agents more effective, it can improve first-time call resolution, reduce call handling time, speed up agent training, identify training needs and increase staff retention.

 

Most dealers possess the fundamental skills required to sell advanced recording systems but must carefully choose a qualified QM vendor to support the increasing complexity of these solutions. For a successful partnership, the product proposition should be simple, a dealer demo package combined with expert advice and sophisticated customer service.