What Should Be On My Customer Service QA Scorecard?

For us customer service people, we pride ourselves on making the customer experience a great one - even if no one is watching. That said, all customer-centric teams will be doing quality assurance and conversations reviews. It's not done to try and catch agents out, it's done to constantly improve the customer experience and create a universally high standard of care.

If you're setting up your quality assurance program for the first time or just looking for new ways to score your customer interactions - we hope this will help!

Quality Criteria for your Quality Assurance Scorecard

It is impossible to say what the 'must-haves' are for a quality assurance program because every company is so different. Below is a list of what we see most regularly checked by our customers. It doesn't mean to say you have to check for all of these; you should choose the ones that best suit your goals.

Greeting

Greeting: Did the agent begin the interaction in a friendly manner? This is a particularly important one for phone conversations. You may not want to include this for chat conversations however, as you might have a template opening that you apply. You can always make it 'Not Applicable' on your scorecard though!

Comprehension

Comprehension: Did the agent fully understand all questions of the customer?

Summary: Did the agent take a moment to summarize what the customer had explained? In phone calls, repeating back to the customer is a good way of seeing that they got all the information correct. In another interaction, a brief summary might make them feel like that they have been heard.  

Quality of Response

Empathy: Was the agent empathetic in this customer interaction? Did they use phrases like 'I understand your frustration' or 'I can see why you're annoyed'?

Personalization: Are they personalizing their message, using the customer's name where appropriate? Does the message feel original and not too template-y?

Honesty/Transparency: Is the agent being totally up-front with the customer?

Well-written: Was it a well-written response? (If you want to go deeper on this part, check Communication below)

Effectiveness: Did the agent do everything in their power to make sure the customer had everything they needed? Did they minimize the likelihood of this customer contacting us again with further questions?

Upselling: Did an opportunity arise to upsell a good/service? Did they take that opportunity?

Communication

Grammar: Has the agent made any grammatical mistakes? Is the agent writing in perfect language?

Clarity: Is the message clear and to the point? Does it go into detail where necessary?

Tone: Has the agent used the appropriate tone, or the company tone of voice?

De-escalation: Does the agent succeed in calming down a customer?

Process & Tools

Process Followed: Was the internal process followed/respected? This could be referring to the process as a whole, or an internal process etc.

Categorization: Was the ticket categorized properly? Are all the right fields filled in on the ticketing system?

Verification // Security Checks: Did the agent carry out any necessary checks to verify the identity of the customer? This is particularly important for any companies that are dealing with sensitive information (e.g. FinTech)

Case History: Have they checked the customer's user case history? This may reveal insights to help solve the customer more effectively.

Escalation: Was the ticket escalated appropriately?

Avoided Escalation: Where appropriate, was escalation avoided?

Outcome

Ownership: Did they display ownership of the problem?

Proactive: Did the agent take a proactive approach to resolving the issue? Did they pre-empt future contacts?

Solved: Was the customer's query solved? Were the next steps explained in full (if any)? Did the agent produce a definitive solution to the customer's problem?

Specific to Calls

Active listening: Is the agent agreeing with the customer with 'yes', 'mmhmm' where appropriate? Are they letting the customer speak and not interrupting?

Summary: Did the agent take a moment to summarize what the customer had explained? In phone calls, repeating back to the customer is a good way of making sure that they have been heard and that they got all the right information. 

Specific to Chat

Timeliness: Were replies sent in a reasonable amount of time?

Agent Performance

Coaching: Did they display an application of the coaching that they have received? Did they correct/improve what they were doing previously?  

Metrics

Targets met: Did the agent meet our KPI? In very sensitive industries, you might want to check to see if the chat or call was finished in 5 minutes. If it's incredibly important to you, you can include it. However, we usually advise against it because it put undue pressure on the agent to end the interaction quickly and often negatively impacts the customer experience. 

How Should I Calculate My Quality Score? 

Now that you've agreed on the topics you want to cover, you will want to think about how you want to phrase the questions you want to ask in your quality assurance scorecard. 

Depending on how you phrase a question, you'll need to have different answers. Let's take the Greeting or 'Tone of Voice' example

💡Example 1: Did the agent use the appropriate tone of voice?  (Yes/No)

💡Example 2: How was the agent's tone of voice in this interaction? (Excellent/Good/Needs Work)

💡Example 3: How was the agent's tone of voice in this interaction? (5/3/1)

Yes/No, written answers and scaled scores are the 3 most common ways to score interactions in a quality assurance program. For an in-depth look at how to score, as well as how to weight your scorecard to reflect the most important topics, read on here!

Want all of our Quality Assurance tips? Get the full Customer Service QA guide!