As seen in Call Center Magazine
November 11, 2004

We asked execs and product people at several of the leading monitoring vendors to tell us about the current state of the industry: what trends are emerging among call centers that use monitoring tools to track call quality and agent performance? Here are some of the highlights of our conversations.

Monitoring Priorities

Q: How have monitoring priorities changed this year from previous years?

Charles Karp, VPI : Our clients' definition of quality assurance is changing and they require a higher volume of contacts to be recorded. For example, companies are interested in evaluating the final disposition of contacts: Was it a sale? Did we dispatch a service crew? Was it a save for customer retention?

To evaluate an adequate number of these call types, our clients are recognizing the advantage of recording all the calls, then mining the appropriate contacts for review as changing business needs arise.

For many of our clients, agent behavior is one element of quality, but not the complete definition. Management wants to review the success of their enterprise in the context of their broader goals. Call recording is a tool that allows them to inspect the interactions that are important to their goals, and view these calls from their perspective.

Our clients' view of liability management is also changing. The value is not in simply recording the call. The more important component is finding, managing and playing back the call.

The traditional reliability concerns are still the top priority, but the flexibility of how the system gathers information about the call and uses the information to add value to the business is a key consideration.

Our most forward-thinking clients are going beyond the categories of liability and quality. They see the next step as completely integrating call recordings into their workflow. Just as they review agent notes associated with a customer relationship, they are integrating our call recordings as a feature set within their customer management applications

Q: This year, compared to previous years, which is most important to your clients: evaluating greater numbers of agents in less time, identifying ways in which agents can communicate better with customers or learning more about what customers want based on what they convey to agents?

Charles Karp, VPI : For our clients, it's really less about the agent -- although that's still an important element. They are more interested in evaluating specific call types based on results of the interactions.

For example, show me all calls for agent x that resulted in a sale over $50 for our new product with a handle time of less than five minutes. Next, they might want to compare that with calls that resulted in no sale with a handle time over seven minutes.

They want to understand how call handling affects their broader objectives. It may be that the agent needs coaching or training, but it also may be that they need to tweak their product offering or overall process to maximize success.

Beyond simple liability and quality concerns, our clients want to use the tools and techniques of business analytics to further their larger goals -- and to do that, they want to have access to all their customer interactions.

Q: Based solely on what you've discussed with clients and on what you've gathered from your own visits to call centers, what aspects of call monitoring do you believe call centers ought to focus on more than they do today?

Charles Karp, VPI : It varies by client, but our most interesting discussions are about integrating the call recording system with other systems that add value. The idea of "outward" integration, where we take the call record and feed it through another application's interface is almost always something the business team gets excited about.

Because the concept is new, and the market has been conditioned to accept a proprietary standalone system to manage recording, integrating call recordings into the broader workflow is typically not something they think about until we arrive.

But once they understand the concept -- that they can take our call records and have them available directly in the interface they are already working in -- they begin to think in a whole new way. Why go to a call logger if you already have the customer on the phone and you have their record sitting right in front of you? If you need to find a call for that customer, it doesn't make sense to go to another system if you don't need to.

When companies need to take time to go to another system to play these calls, it either increases handle time while they go through the process of finding the call, or more commonly decreases first call resolution because they often need to call the customer back.

Obviously, the call record is important to the ultimate resolution in either case, but more flexible access to the record better serves the broader goals of the customer relationship.

Q: Following up on our previous question, what aspects of call monitoring should call centers focus on less than they do today?

Charles Karp, VPI : Pure random recording of a call center agent without any real intelligence of the call outcome or call type is less appealing than it used to be.

Companies who are more mature in their quality monitoring efforts are more interested in reviewing agent calls in the context of final disposition. Many call centers are still using the mindset of x calls per agent per month.

Now that technology is more cost efficient to provide higher volume recording at a comparable cost to random, the definition of quality needs to broaden across the market to encompass broader corporate objectives.

No doubt, agent behavior is one element of quality, but call recording can support other, broader elements of quality like reviewing sales by value, or reviewing calls with multiple transfers, etc.

Q: Do you find that your clients implement call recording tools alongside other systems, like workforce management (WFM) software and computer-based training software?

Charles Karp, VPI : More and more clients are looking at all of the technology they have in the call center and looking at it in terms of their broader mission. Call recording companies are partnering with other technologies or building their own for related functionality.

VPI is focused on providing turnkey integrations, but not forcing the issue. For example, we have defined partnerships for analytics and learning, but if a client already has another provider or wants to choose something else, we focus on integrating with whatever technology they choose.

Q: Have any clients shared with you any relationship between recording agents' calls and their success in retaining agents?

Charles Karp, VPI : Our call records are used in training for two reasons. One is a well-trained rep who feels they are being evaluated fairly is more likely to stay longer. When you only selectively record calls, you are not getting a true picture of an agent's performance. Full-time recording allows you to evaluate agents based on a much more representative sample of calls from any time, on any day. This not only increases agent motivation and performance, but also results in more loyal agents.

For example, suppose you choose to record Janice at 4 p.m. on the 1st, 8th, 15th 21st and 27th of the month. While evaluating her work you notice that she audibly yawns four to six times per call and makes several simple mistakes. If you had recorded every call, you could select 10 a.m. on any of the same days and get a very different picture of Janice's work. She's enthusiastic, helpful and very accurate. What is happening? Janice explains that she is a morning person. You switch her to the early shift and she becomes your most complimented agent.

Just as important is the understanding that in some environments agent turnover is a simple reality. Therefore, bringing agents up to speed in an efficient manner is critical. It's also important to use call records (voice and screen recordings in many cases) as an example of new programs, so the organization is ready to roll with new campaigns as quickly as possible.

Retention is important, but the primary focus of our technology is making training faster and more effective using real time examples.

Q: Have you found, among your clients, that call recording serves as a disincentive to agents staying in their jobs?

Charles Karp, VPI : No. In fact, the opposite is often true. Agents understand that it's a normal part of doing business in the call center industry -- and agents want fairness. A comprehensive recording solution ensures fairness. By having a broad assortment of calls available for playback, the agents know they can always appeal to someone else if they feel the supervisor isn't evaluating them fairly.

In terms of training, some focus too much on the negative behaviors that are identified in call recordings. Companies that are more successful with their quality program use the call record to share success among agents. Most calls in most centers are handled well. Using call records to encourage strong behavior is just as important to reducing errors or exceptions. Fairness and encouraging agents are important components of retention, not to mention improving quality.