The Use of Quality Monitoring in European Contact Centers

What are the key success benchmarks driving the use of quality monitoring (QM) in contact centers in Europe? And what are the main challenges in its implementation?

 

In addition to traditional features for defining the quality and training requirements of a contact center and its agents, the success of a QM system in Europe ultimately depends on the acceptance of employees and unions as well as its ability to meet stringent data protection standards.

 

And, like any technological innovation, the solution must fit into the existing environment, infrastructure and processes already established by the management of the contact center.

 

The basic requirement of a QM system involves capturing audio and screen activities occurring on an agent’s desktop and using this functionality in a variety of ways.

 

Most importantly, to comply with European regulations on data protection, the archiving of information captured on a desktop must be limited. As a result, the QM applications accessible by the agent must include functions to block the preservation of private content such as customers’ login and pin data.

 

In Europe, to implement a QM solution in the first place, the contact center’s management and the union’s working council must reach a contractual agreement defining the process. In most European countries, the recording of telephone calls is prohibited by law unless all participants, including the customer and agent, agree in advance.

 

For inbound European contact centers, customers will be asked by IVR applications whether they approve the recording. In addition, their approval may be withdrawn at any time during the course of the conversation, and then the agent must stop the recording immediately.

 

The agent must also approve the recording, either by the above-mentioned agreement between the contact center management and its working council, or by the terms of their individual contract of employment.

 

European contact centers may restrict recording to a specific campaign, with the agent informed in advance, or limits may be established on the number of captured interactions or the minimum size of the agent group affected. Personal coaching and/or agent evaluations may be implemented, but their storage in a permanent database may also be restricted.

 

These restrictions affect the implementation of QM solutions as well as the customized environment of dependent applications on the agent’s desktop. Worldwide providers of QM solutions must address these technical, organizational and social requirements to fulfill contact centers’ expectations for QM in Europe.

 

 

In evaluating QM providers, international organizations must determine their customer-proven capabilities and flexibility to implement the QM features required for the European market as well as the individual requirements of contact centers. Their record of flexibility in prior interactions with working councils and data protection approved systems are essential as well.