Part 1 of a 2-part Series, Authored by Dick Bucci, Analyst at The PELORUS Group and Patrick Botz, Director of Workforce Optimization at VPI

W. Edwards Deming once said, "Quality is everyone’s responsibility." This is especially true of the public safety answering point (PSAP) environment, where many different individuals and technologies must work together for a common cause -- to serve the public. As the initial point of contact and central hub of all communications, it's absolutely crucial for call takers and dispatchers to perform well on a consistent basis -- lives depend upon the speed and accuracy of their actions. In the PSAP environment, a strong and thorough quality assurance (QA) process is gradually being recognized as an essential component in the ongoing quest for performance and productivity improvements. Call takers and dispatchers work under very stressful conditions and can benefit enormously from the ongoing feedback and coaching provided by the very personalized approach of modern QA solutions. Quality assurance is the process of listening to live or recorded calls for the purpose of assessing how well the call taker handled the call. The primary objective is to improve individual and group performance based on identified call quality criteria. But what exactly defines a "good" QA process? The days when a supervisor pulled up a chair next to a dispatcher and ticked boxes on a paper form are long gone -- or should be. Today's advanced QA solutions and best practices enable managers to take a much closer look at the performance of their call takers, and have been developed to make the process much easier -- and much more effective.

Getting Down to Basics

Most PSAPs today deploy older, legacy analog recorders that lack the search tools needed to extract calls by agent, by time, incident and other important variables. These systems may also record voice interactions only, making it impossible to reconstruct the entire incident, including the speed and accuracy of work processes. The better QA software packages simultaneously record screen actions with voice. This allows evaluators to examine the call taker's ability to follow procedures, enter data correctly and properly use the applications.

You may be struggling -- like many other PSAPs today -- with challenges associated with consolidation and/or the implementation of new, disparate technologies. A lot of public safety communications centers have, or will soon implement, a combination of digital, analog and IP phones, conventional and trunked radio, and multiple types of CAD systems used at multiple sites. This introduces a new level of complexity into unified recording. Today’s most advanced interaction recording systems offer universal or adaptable voice and data interface designs that allow for easy conversion of the same system for recording of any combination of communication systems. Regardless of the source, all audio and data should be recorded, stored, accessed and reported on in a unified fashion. This is a necessary foundation for efficient retrieval and use of the recorded information—essential for effective QA.

Don't Miss the Importance of Calibration

QA personnel are looking for specific call handling attributes. The attributes are determined by management and dictated by regulations. In the PSAP environment, these attributes may include: fact finding, call control, adherence to processes and procedures, voice clarity, ability to calm caller, listening skills, empathy and stress control. However, many of these attributes are subjective and may be gauged and scored to varying degrees by different supervisors based upon their personal outlook and opinions. In a small PSAP with only one or two supervisors there will likely be consistency in the way judgments are made. In very large PSAPs there will be several supervisors or even dedicated trainers who can also perform the QA evaluations. In that case, it is prudent to conduct calibration sessions among the personnel that conduct the evaluations periodically. The aim is to help assure consistency. In these sessions, several recorded interactions are broadcast over PC speakers or via some other means and then each evaluator separately conducts their ratings. The moderator then asks each evaluator to explain and defend their ratings. Over time, all personnel will have a common basis for rating subjective attributes like "call control" and "empathy."

The Nuts and Bolts of QA

The aim of QA is not so much to identify weak links -- although this may be a consequence -- but to identify areas for training and coaching opportunities. Since supervisors can only listen to a small fraction of total calls, it is important to select calls that present coaching opportunities. The calls may be monitored real-time, as a supervisor listens in on a remote phone, or by selecting stored calls from the recording device. The latter approach is preferable as personnel tasked with monitoring responsibility need the flexibility to conduct the monitoring sessions when time is available.

To really get the most from your QA process, it's important to ascertain just how many calls, and which in particular, you need to be monitoring. Fortunately for the general public, call volume per call taker is relatively light. In the commercial world, an agent working in a typical 100-agent contact center would handle more than 1,000 calls per month. Commercial contact centers would typically grade five to 20 calls per month per agent. A smaller number -- say two to four calls per month per call taker would suffice for small PSAPs. For example, for an emergency communications center based in Charlottesville, VA that serves a population area of approximately 200,000, the QA program requires that at least two percent of call taker calls be monitored each month. The number and frequency of evaluations should always be higher for new hires during the probationary period.

More important than the number of calls is choosing the right calls to evaluate. If you simply select calls randomly, then you may not find many coaching opportunities. Remember, the intent is not to establish a statistically pure set of metrics but to find ways to make individual call takers perform better at their jobs. You will never have enough time or resources to perform a statistically significant random sample of calls for each call taker each month. Therefore, it's vital to establish which calls you need to target. Emergency calls -- generally considered the most important call taker responsibility -- can be sourced for QA purposes from incident coding or outcome. Calls representing a long handle time should also be monitored because, while there should never be a limit on how much time it takes to resolve an issue, call takers that consistently take longer than the norm may need coaching in CAD skills, basic information gathering, call control and multi-tasking ability. Short-cycle repeat calls from the same number should be reviewed as this may indicate that insufficient information was communicated during the initial call. For example, the address was entered incorrectly causing a delay in service delivery.

Building an Effective QA Rating Form

The rating form must reflect the goals and vision of your individual PSAP. It's a good idea to take the time to poll your contacts at other PSAPs or local association officials to find good QA form examples. Additionally, many mid-size to larger local governments have service-centric contact centers to dispense general information about available resources. These organizations are probably already using QA and may have forms that you can review. You may ultimately have to modify your existing forms or start from scratch. Try to keep your forms short, with no more than 20 rating factors -- ideally closer to 10. Be sure to use scaled responses rather than the rather unhelpful yes/no option, and stick with five-point scales, which are familiar and easier to analyze than seven or 10-point scales. Remember to address each of the key functions and skills and always use different forms for different situations or incident types.

The New Age of QA Technology

Until recently, the PSAP QA process had not been embraced with the enthusiasm it so rightly deserves. Many PSAPs found the process tedious and cumbersome, yielding minimal intelligence. Times have changed and QA is now recognized as essential to the overall performance and productivity of the communications center. New enabling QA technologies are helping PSAP professionals to effectively and efficiently manage QA with advanced capabilities that take out all the guess work.

Ideally, you should be looking to implement a QA solution that simplifies and automates the evaluation process. In addition to automatically selecting the most coachable calls for evaluation, the application should also be able to associate the correct form for the individual call type and automatically deliver both for evaluation. This way, your supervisors will simply fill out the form from their workstation. The newer PSAP technology solutions provide model forms and an authoring tool for creating and editing your own forms. Since the software is accessible via the Web, supervisors do not have to come in after hours to evaluate night-shift workers. They can conduct any call taker's evaluation directly from their desktop at the office or even from home over password-protected broadband telephone or data lines, assuming that appropriate security is in place.

These advanced technologies will automatically tabulate the scores for each monitored skill and add the latest scores to the call takers' database. Management can use the resulting information to view performance metrics of individual call takers or your entire communications center, choosing from a wide array of graphs and charts to determine whether a call taker requires more training, qualifies for a promotion or is in line for termination. Management can also provide prompt, personalized feedback to call takers and dispatchers by providing exported evaluations with the related communication recording for review, or by using Web-based scorecards and employee desktop tickers that link to additional information. They can create trend reports to see how performance has changed over time and pull in individual performance metrics to add to the profile. Managers and supervisors can choose to visualize data in dynamic, easy to understand heat maps, charts and reports that allow for easy navigation through layers of information. Intelligence gathered can help determine whether any process of the 9-1-1 communications center or remote dispatch point requires modification or change.

It's important to spend "quality" time with your PSAP. If you've been neglecting the QA process you could be missing out on a wealth of information and insights that could significantly boost the productivity and performance of the communications center. With the right QA technology in place, you should experience a very quick return on investment, making it even easier to justify the adoption of these truly invaluable solutions.

Patrick Botz serves as Director of Workforce Optimization at VPI, the world's premier global provider of digital voice logging and quality management solutions for public safety, security, and government agencies. As a quality assurance practitioner, Patrick focuses on the mission-critical aspects of capturing real time intelligence and improving communications center quality and performance. He holds an MBA from Pepperdine University and a BSE in Engineering from Arizona State University.

Dick Bucci is Senior Consultant for The PELORUS Group where he specializes in contact center technologies. He has authored eight in-depth reports on workforce optimization applications and numerous articles and white papers. Dick is also managing director of Technology Marketing Associates, a marketing consulting firm. He has more than 30 years of experience in the telecommunications industry. Visit www.PelorusAssoc.com to learn more.

To learn more about best practices in QA, visit download your free resource guide Best Practices in Public Safety Recording, Quality Assurance and Training, by industry analyst, Dick Bucci.

Click here to read Part 2 of this article series: Keeping Up With the Times: Best Practices in PSAP Quality Management and Multi-Channel Logging and Incident Reporting