The Importance of Contact Center Audits

The purpose of a contact center audit is to gather information on the operations of a call center to understand what’s going well and identify areas for improvement with the goal of optimizing productivity and efficiency. Audits evaluate various areas of the contact center, such as workflows, technologies, guidelines and processes. Here we explore the importance of contact center audits.

Reasons for Performing a Contact Center Audit
Some reasons to consider an audit include:

• Pinpoint and fix performance issues related to contact center agents, processes and more.
• Identify and correct where resources are not well distributed or managed.
• Measure if the center is on track to meet goals and reveal the changes that will help achieve objectives.
• Identify areas where technology, such as AI, could improve efficiency.
• Improve contact center agent training.
• Uncover friction in the customer journey to improve it customer experience.

Below, we cover some of the key areas to evaluate while conducting a contact center audit.

Contact Center Processes
You should determine if your contact center processes and policies are clear and easy to access and assess if updates or adjustments can be made to increase efficiency. For example, some process steps may no longer be necessary or could be merged with other steps. You should also review call scripts to ensure they are up-to-date and make improvements.

Call Center Metrics
There are various metrics you can examine to evaluate how effectively your contact center is running including:

• Average speed to answer can help assess if you need more employees.
• If average handle time is long, you may need to provide more training or updated information to agents.
• Abandonment rate helps ensure customer satisfaction.
• Average calls per agent helps assess the number of calls that agents can handle and whether more staff is needed.

You can also examine the accuracy of contact center forecasts and the cost per call.

In addition to assessing the above metrics, it’s also important to assess metrics related to agents such as schedule adherence, first call resolution, maximum occupancy rate and quality assurance scoring.

Agent Recruiting and Training

• Make sure job descriptions are accurate and detailed and include all necessary qualifications for hiring, such as candidate evaluations and background checks. This will help ensure you attract the right candidate for open positions.
• Assess onboarding and training programs, such as the learning of software and procedures, to ensure they are as effective and efficient as possible. Consider ways to tailor your programs for the needs of individual agents and ways to keep them engaged.

Customer Satisfaction
In addition to auditing the operations of your contact center, it’s essential to examine customer satisfaction metrics such as Customer Satisfaction Score, Customer Effort Score, and Net Promoter Score. Monitoring these metrics helps ensure customers are receiving a satisfactory service experience and can uncover things that need correcting.

Making Audits Happen
Contact center audits are an important element in the success of your business and doing them on a regular basis can help not only identify ways to increase efficiencies but also reveal gaps such as agent or new client onboarding, friction in the customer journey, workforce management and much more. At CH Consulting Group, we know an audit isn’t always on the top of contact center leaders’ to-do lists, which is why we provide a 360° Assessment and other reports to help you quickly understand all aspects of your business. Contact CH Consulting Group today to learn more.