“Your call may be monitored for quality and training purposes.” I’m sure you’ve heard that line at one time or another. Call center outsiders…

That Big Little Meeting Called a Calibration Call

“Your call may be monitored for quality and training purposes.” I’m sure you’ve heard that line at one time or another.  Call center outsiders may not care what happens behind the scenes when they hear this common phrase. Call center insiders, however, understand that it takes comprehensive training to ensure that agents know how to properly handle calls. They also understand that there are three major keys assisting agents in reaching customers and obtaining their loyalty. Theese keys are called monitoring, coaching, and training.  And the one tool that marries all three is a big little meeting called a calibration call.

At PREMIER BPO LLC, calibration is normally used to standardize quality audits among the Quality Assurance Department, Operations Department, and the client themselves. All parties monitor and rate either recorded or live calls. This process helps improve and develop a more streamlined coaching process for agents. Calibration sessions, by their nature, need to be both open and participatory. At the same time, the sessions must be disciplined in order to get the work done in a frank manner and without rancor or blame. Each session is started with a brief review of the purpose, criterion, scoring, and approach (or ideal behavior during the session).

It’s ten minutes to two, and I have to dial into the calibration session.  At the end of the session, only one thing remains:  A calming, warm sense of achievement that once more, the participants ensure that any two people can listen to the same call and score the quality the same – we agree about procedure of standardizing the evaluation and scoring process.  Calibration is a tool for providing a consistent level of quality service to our customers. We have in place an absolute requirement to improving call monitoring performance and ensuring customer satisfaction.  All is well in my PREMIER BPO LLC world.