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Businesses have one common objective: to deliver excellent services to clients. Accomplishing this goal requires performing quality assurance (QA) on all processes. Companies can keep this function in-house or outsource it to third-party QA specialists to minimize errors while leveraging cost-efficient fees.
Deciding whether to outsource or keep processes in-house is challenging, given that many companies know little about the benefits of business process outsourcing (BPO) in quality assurance.
If you are curious about how BPO can enhance QA processes, this article is for you.
How BPO Facilitates Quality Assurance Best Practices and Processes
Ensuring a high quality of service and a positive reputation is vital for any business. QA significantly contributes to maintaining the trust of clients and end users. This fact is especially true in the BPO industry, where it is a critical factor for companies seeking service providers.
Outsourcing clients expect consistent and thorough quality audits. Insubstantial or ambiguous audits can lead to a decline in the client’s standards, posing a risk to the business and its goals. In extreme cases, minor lapses in quality and integrity may fail a company.
A meticulously planned and effectively executed quality management process is essential for the success of any BPO opportunity. Here are some of the best practices BPO firms apply when handling quality assurance tasks.
Align QA Metrics With Organizational Goals
When selecting quality metrics, BPO firms consider how they can help achieve the client’s business goals. The reports generated by the QA team aim to assist the client in gauging and evaluating the quality of every output and process in place.
While identifying metrics, BPO providers align them with key performance indicators (KPIs) and employ measurable strategies to ensure team members attain relevant KPIs.
Clarify Quality Metrics for Workers
A successful quality and performance management plan requires well-defined and concise metrics. Another critical factor is to ensure that every team member is familiar with these metrics and follows them when executing tasks to attain the desired objectives.
BPO firms follow set measures to guarantee that team members undergo appropriate training and coaching sessions to meet these metrics. Additionally, they consistently monitor performance and track progress based on the established quality metrics.
Develop a QA Checklist and Formulate a Comprehensive Improvement Strategy
A BPO team specializing in quality assurance can prepare for and assess the performance of the production team. This process involves creating a QA checklist that auditors can utilize as a guide during process audits. It contributes to a more systematic, consistent, and efficient audit process.
Third-party teams can establish a performance improvement plan with a well-structured audit procedure. Without a strategy aligned with quality metrics, businesses risk wasting the efforts invested in regular performance audits.
The primary objective of these audits is to identify opportunities for improvement within the team and business areas that can be enhanced for greater efficiency.
Giving team members regular feedback allows them to maintain good performance, benefiting the client long-term. Better employee performance comes with better output, leading to improved operations and revenue.
Incorporate a Culture of Ongoing Feedback
Regular feedback is crucial to improvement, helping individuals recognize opportunities and evaluate their performance.
Providing team members with consistent feedback enables them to sustain high performance, ultimately benefiting the client over the long term. Enhanced employee performance leads to improved output, resulting in operational efficiency and increased revenue for the client.
Utilize Performance Data Outcomes for Coaching
Following each quality audit, the third-party QA team can arrange coaching sessions to discuss their findings thoroughly with the team.
Efficient coaching plays a pivotal role in fostering substantial and positive changes in an individual. It also enhances knowledge transfer from the QA coach to the employee.
These professionals delve into critical findings in depth to enhance the effectiveness of coaching sessions. They encourage the individual undergoing coaching to ask questions and openly discuss the existing process. This approach allows for a better understanding of their thought processes and facilitates performance improvement.
Ways BPO Enhances QA Processes in Call Centers
Call center QA focuses on enhancing service quality and customer satisfaction levels. Around 81% of consumers state that good customer service makes them more likely to purchase from a brand.
The QA process entails establishing predefined standards for call handling, monitoring calls to ensure adherence to standards, and implementing corrective measures when necessary. It also encompasses compliance within the contact center.
QA is vital because it prevents errors that could lead to financial losses or reputational damage. For instance, providing incorrect information to a customer might result in a lost opportunity for future interactions. Similarly, if an agent acts rudely, the customer may share their negative experience with friends and family, potentially harming the overall business reputation.
So, what is BPO’s role in enhancing quality assurance in call centers? Let’s discuss.
Supervise Each Customer Support Channel
The third-party QA team enhances the call center’s quality score by monitoring all customer support channels, including phone calls, emails, live chat, and social media. Customers not only desire but also anticipate omnichannel support. Well-planned omnichannel engagement strategies can turn 89% of buyers into loyal customers.
Effectively providing omnichannel support entails the proper management and thorough monitoring of all channels for QA. Through vigilant monitoring of all available channels, BPO teams that are well-versed in quality assurance can promptly identify and address potential issues.
Delegate QA Responsibility to a Team Member
BPO teams can assign QA ownership to one of their staff along with the call center’s internal QA officer. This is crucial to ensuring adherence to the QA process.
While the individual filling this role must possess knowledge and experience handling customer interaction, they do not necessarily have to be managers. Providing this opportunity to an agent promotes both growth and a sense of ownership across the team.
Disseminate Real-time Analytics Among the Team
Sharing real-time analytics with the team is an effective way to keep everyone on the same page. Through data sharing, BPO teams can promptly detect issues and implement changes. Having multiple team members review the same data reduces the likelihood of unresolved problems.
Another approach involves using calls, which adhere to best practices, as learning opportunities. When a particular agent successfully handles a customer call, the BPO partner can leverage the recording or insights from that interaction for agent training.
Creating an open and collaborative environment is crucial for agent improvement. Use real examples from your call center and conduct reviews with the team to learn from one another.
Leverage the Best QA Software Solutions
Top QA software can automate and streamline the process, freeing up time for other tasks. When seeking such software, prioritize tools with features such as call recording, call monitoring, and performance reporting.
- Call recording. Software for call recording captures and documents phone conversations within the contact center, serving as a valuable resource during the QA review.
- Call monitoring. Call monitoring software lets management listen to calls in real time, enabling them to verify agent adherence to scripts or provide immediate coaching.
- Performance reporting. Performance reporting software provides data and insights into team performance. It plays a critical role in pinpointing areas for improvement within the contact center.
Some quality assurance software tools may also include customer satisfaction surveys, providing a straightforward method for gathering feedback on the quality of customer support.
Tools BPO Firms Use to Improve Quality Assurance
Technology is crucial in enhancing the efficiency, accuracy, and effectiveness of BPO quality assurance processes. QA is a systematic way of ensuring that products or services meet specified requirements and standards.
Here are some tools BPO companies use and the essential ways in which technology contributes to quality assurance:
- Automated testing tools. Technology enables the automation of repetitive and time-consuming testing processes. Automated testing tools can execute test scripts, perform regression testing, and detect defects faster than manual testing. They help reduce human errors and ensure more consistent and reliable results.
- Test management tools. QA teams use test management tools to plan, track, and manage testing activities. These tools help organize test cases, manage test execution, and generate reports. Test management tools also facilitate collaboration among team members and provide visibility into testing progress.
- Continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD). CI/CD practices, supported by various tools, automate software building, testing, and deployment. They ensure that new code changes are continuously integrated and tested, reducing the risk of introducing defects into the production environment.
- Performance testing tools. Performance testing tools assess software applications’ responsiveness, speed, and stability under different conditions. They help identify and address performance issues before the software is released to end users.
- Monitoring and logging tools. Continuous monitoring and logging tools help track the performance of applications in real time. They provide insights into system behavior, identify bottlenecks, and enable quick responses to potential issues, contributing to overall system reliability.
- Collaboration platforms. Technology facilitates communication and collaboration within QA teams and between different stakeholders involved. Collaboration platforms, such as project management tools and communication channels, help ensure that everyone involved in QA is on the same page and has access to relevant information.
- Data analytics for quality metrics. Technology enables the collection and analysis of various quality metrics. Data analytics tools can provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of the QA process, identify trends, and help make data-driven decisions for continuous improvement.
- Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML). Emerging technologies such as AI and ML are increasingly used in QA. AI for QA will hit $4.0 billion by 2026. They can be employed for predictive analytics, intelligent test case generation, and anomaly detection, enhancing the overall efficiency and accuracy of the QA process.
The Bottom Line
While some businesses outsource back-office processes, others specifically engage BPOs for quality assurance alone. In such cases, companies enlist the services of an outsourcing partner to verify quality while retaining control of their processes in-house.
Outsourcing could be the optimal choice if you need professional QA solutions. The benefits include reduced costs and boosted customer trust.
For more detailed guidance on outsourcing QA requirements, contact us at Unity Communications. We are here to assist you in developing a suitable quality audit process tailored to your processes and business model. Let’s connect to learn more about BPO’s role in quality assurance processes!