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Contact Center Quality Management: Best Software Tools in 2024
by Kent Mao | Published On April 18, 2024 | Last Updated May 2, 2024
From analytics to agent coaching tools, there are many quality management solutions on the market today.
Contact centers should aim to provide outstanding customer experiences during every interaction. But to ensure your contact center is delivering the highest quality customer service, you need the right insights. That starts with implementing tools that allow you to monitor, evaluate, and optimize the performance of your contact center agents.
Contact center quality management software offers business leaders comprehensive insights into the strengths and weaknesses of their customer service strategies. By leveraging this technology, businesses can make informed decisions to boost customer satisfaction and reduce customer turnover.
In this article, we’ll cover how quality management works, why it matters for contact centers, and the best quality management software in 2024.
What is Contact Center Quality Management?
Contact center quality management refers to the methods and tools that businesses use to make sure their customer service meets specific quality standards. By employing quality management software, also known as quality assurance or quality monitoring technology, companies can gain valuable insights into their customer interactions.
The right solutions include everything from call monitoring and recording tools to transcription software and tools for creating employee scorecards.
What are the Benefits of Quality Management?
Quality management is essential to running any type of contact center. By using the right quality management software, you can achieve the following benefits:
- Better customer experience: Quality management (QM) software provides insights into customer satisfaction and key performance metrics, allowing companies to enhance the customer experience. It supports strategies to decrease wait times and offer personalized service.
- Improved compliance: By closely monitoring all interactions, businesses can ensure their agents are adhering to industry regulations and company policies. The right software will help you identify and address compliance issues early, protecting your company's reputation.
- Enhanced agent performance: Agents can receive feedback on their performance, sometimes in real-time, helping them to recognize their strengths and areas for improvement. This not only boosts employee engagement but also lays the foundation for effective training and development programs.
- Faster dispute resolution: Conversation recordings serve as valuable evidence for resolving disputes between customers and companies. QM tools provide a layer of protection against potential legal challenges.
- Cost reduction: QM software can help pinpoint inefficiencies and areas that need enhancement within the contact center, leading to lower operational expenses. They can also support the delivery of more efficient training programs and minimize risks.
Key Features of Quality Management Software
As contact centers grow more complex, quality management software has evolved to keep up. While most of these software solutions offer essential features like call recording, transcription, and the ability to create custom reports, more advanced systems provide additional cutting-edge features.
Common features of quality management software include:
Call and screen recording
Most quality management (QM) software will allow you to record voice calls and agents’ screens during customer interactions. This feature is crucial for coaching, quality assessment, and compliance purposes.
Omnichannel support
In today’s contact center space, companies need to manage conversations across a range of channels, from email to live chat and even social media. An omnichannel quality management solution will ensure you can track data from all channels, offering a holistic view into your contact center’s performance.
Quality evaluation and scoring
Most QM software will allow managers to evaluate recorded interactions based on predefined criteria and scorecards. This feature helps in identifying areas where agents excel and areas where they need improvement.
Speech analytics
Speech or conversation analytics is a type of QM software that uses advanced speech recognition and analysis to automatically scan calls for keywords, phrases, tone, and emotion. This can help provide insights into customer sentiment, compliance risks, and opportunities for agent training.
Real-time reporting
Real-time insights are extremely valuable for contact centers. The right tools will allow supervisors to monitor crucial metrics instantly, allowing you to adapt quickly to changes in customer satisfaction or contact center demand.
AI-driven insights
QM solutions that leverage artificial intelligence can help organizations rapidly surface trends and insights from huge volumes of data. The right tools can monitor customer sentiment, highlight patterns, and even automatically notify supervisors when issues or compliance risks emerge.
Integrations
Quality management software works best when it can align insights and data from multiple platforms. The right solution will integrate seamlessly with your CRM tools, workforce management solutions, and other enterprise-level software.
The Best Quality Management Software in 2024
The best quality management software for your organization will depend on many factors, from your budget and business objectives to your contact center and CRM platforms.
While the features of quality management software can vary, the best tools will offer a combination of user-friendliness and scalability. As your business and customer service strategy evolves, your technology should be able to adapt and transform too.
Based on our knowledge of the contact center landscape, here are some of our top picks for quality management software in 2024.
Tethr
Tethr is a cloud-based conversation analytics platform that offers automated quality assurance and monitoring for every conversation. Enhanced by AI, Tethr can rapidly assess the quality of every customer interaction based on pre-set criteria. It can track agent KPIs and offer insights into customer friction points with visual reports and dashboards.
Plus, the platform allows companies to create their own custom evaluation forms, ensuring they can track the metrics that matter most to them. Tethr also offers tools for evaluating agent performance based on real interactions. This includes tracking adherence to best practices, understanding areas where agents excel, and identifying opportunities for individual or team-level training.
Features:
- AI-powered transcription and conversation analytics
- Customizable dashboards for agents and supervisors
- Custom reports and checklists for conversations
- Risk and compliance management
- Predictive analytics
- Agent collaboration tools
Best for: Businesses looking for advanced speech analytics and deep insights into customer interactions and agent performance.
Observe.AI
Drawing on the power of generative AI, Observe.AI provides software for contact centers to enhance their quality management, agent performance, and customer experience. Unlike some solutions, Observe.AI ensures organizations can capture and analyze 100% of their conversations across any channel.
Observe.AI has its own dedicated contact center large language model (LLM), as well as a range of AI assistants available to support employees. Observe.AI also offers automated tools for agent coaching.
Features:
- End-to-end omnichannel support
- Highly accurate transcription system
- Automated redaction for contact center compliance
- Sentiment analysis
- Real-time AI agent assistance
- Generative AI summarization
- Automatic quality assurance scoring
- Agent performance and coaching
Best for: Companies seeking to leverage the latest AI tools, including AI-powered transcription and agent assistants with generative AI capabilities.
ScoreBuddy QA
ScoreBuddy QA is a cloud-based quality assurance platform designed specifically for contact centers. It provides a comprehensive suite of tools aimed at improving customer service interactions through effective monitoring, evaluation, and feedback processes. The platform can rapidly analyze conversations on any channel and track satisfaction scores, conversation trends, and sentiment.
With Scorebuddy, companies can even combine their quality monitoring insights with real-time, AI-enhanced agent coaching and business intelligence tools. Plus, you can create custom employee scorecards and develop automated workflows to streamline productivity.
Features:
- Omnichannel monitoring
- Integrations with business tools and CRMs
- Agent training solutions
- Customizable scorecards
- AI analysis for customer sentiment
- Customizable agent and supervisor dashboards
- Data visualization and reports
Best for: Companies that want to create a customized quality monitoring experience with tailored training resources, dashboards, and scorecards.
Balto
Balto trains agents and transforms contact center productivity with AI-driven, real-time guidance for employees. Balto not only monitors the quality of each interaction, but it also analyzes conversations as they happen, providing agents with instant feedback, live prompts, and actionable insights to handle calls more effectively.
Balto can also help mitigate risks in the contact center by automatically alerting managers about potential compliance risks and giving them tools they can use to chat with employees during customer interactions.
Features:
- Real-time agent assistance
- Customizable alerts and prompts
- Speech analytics
- Compliance tracking
- Automated transcription and notetaking
- Integrations with contact centers and CRMs
Best for: Businesses looking to leverage real-time insights into customer satisfaction scores, as well as live coaching and guidance for agents.
Maestro QA
Maestro QA’s software platform supercharges quality assurance with customizable scorecards, workflow automation, and omnichannel analysis. The technology can transcribe interactions and provide insights into the root causes behind customer churn and retention. There are even gamification tools such as leaderboards for agent engagement.
With Maestro QA, companies can develop actionable coaching workflows and custom reports. They can also evaluate the performance of their automated bots and AI assistants, ensuring their self-service experiences are constantly improving.
Features:
- Quality assurance automation
- Coaching and feedback tools
- Customizable report and scorecard builder
- Leaderboards for gamification
- AI-powered root cause analysis
- Screen capture and call recording
- Integrations with countless business tools
Best for: Businesses looking for a holistic approach to quality management with an emphasis on integration, automation, and employee engagement.
Playvox QM
Like many of the best quality management solutions, Playvox QM leverages AI to provide companies with deep insights into customer behavior, patterns, and trends. It allows companies to proactively analyze agent performance across every channel, surface insights into customer sentiment, and even automate workflows.
Companies can access customizable agent scorecards and integrate their QM technologies with workforce management tools, CRM systems, and contact center platforms. Playvox’s quality management software even comes with integrated training, coaching, and onboarding solutions.
Features:
- Customizable agent scorecards and dashboards
- Integration with various business tools
- Automatic sentiment analysis
- Workflow automation with daily, weekly, and monthly goals
- AI-driven insights into opportunities and risks
- Additional products like capacity planning tools
Best for: Businesses that already use other Playvox products and are looking to add a quality management solution.
Best Contact Centers for Quality Management in 2024
While quality management software can offer many benefits when deployed on its own, there is an alternative. Choosing a contact center with built-in quality management features is an excellent choice for cost savings and simplicity.
Here’s a roundup of the top contact center platforms with built-in quality management tools.
ComputerTalk
ComputerTalk’s ice Contact Center features real-time monitoring capabilities, allowing supervisors to monitor queues, customer experience and performance in real-time. You can also set custom alerts based on agent performance, such as when certain thresholds have been exceeded.
The omnichannel solution also features built-in recording and transcription features, historical reporting capabilities, chatbots, and even surveying tools for collecting qualitative feedback. With the ability to integrate with virtually any software, including standalone QM tools, ComputerTalk provides the opportunity for you to fully customize your contact center platform.
Features:
- Omnichannel insights and communication options
- Recording and transcription across all channels
- Dynamic performance, agent, and journey monitoring
- PCI-compliant payment processing
- AI chatbots and virtual assistants
- Customizable surveys
- Contact handling toolbars
- Automated workflow designer
- Outbound campaign management
Best for: Businesses looking for a flexible and comprehensive contact center solution, offering real-time and historical insights into every interaction.
NICE CXone
NICE CXone is a comprehensive customer and agent experience platform. Infused with the company’s AI “Enlighten” portfolio, NICE CXone offers access to comprehensive tools for boosting agent productivity and efficiency. The complete contact center platform features a host of tools for conversational analytics, journey orchestration, call routing, and quality management.
Features:
- Enlighten AI tools for self-service and agent support
- CX analytics and reporting
- Quality management tools
- Open cloud connectivity with various integrations
- Proactive outbound campaign management
- Omnichannel support
Best for: Companies keen to embrace generative AI tools for quality management, workflow optimization, and agent productivity.
Talkdesk
Talkdesk's cloud contact center offers a selection of tools for AI-powered collaboration, omnichannel customer engagement, and quality management. The platform can integrate with a range of solutions through Talkdesk’s AppConnect marketplace, and even comes with access to workforce engagement management and gamification tools.
Features:
- Comprehensive AI tools for self-service and agent support
- AI-driven conversation and sentiment analytics
- Workforce engagement management platform
- Customizable integrations and bot building solutions
- Extensive quality management and historical reporting tools
- End-to-end reliability and security
Best for: Companies that want to leverage custom bot interactions in their contact center.
Genesys Cloud CX
Another industry-leading omnichannel contact center solution, the Genesys Cloud CX platform includes comprehensive tools for experience orchestration, quality management, intelligent routing, and AI-powered customer engagement. Genesys Cloud CX includes workforce engagement management tools and a customizable environment with support for APIs and integrations.
Features:
- Omnichannel inbound and outbound contact center
- AI-powered bots and automated workflows
- Comprehensive range of apps and integrations
- Custom forms and evaluations manager
- Real-time employee and status monitoring
Best for: Companies looking for a customizable contact center with flexible APIs, integrations, and UC connectors.
Five9
Five9 gives companies everything they need to run an inbound, outbound, or blended contact center. The vendor offers tools for building and implementing intelligent virtual assistants into your workflows, automating workflows, and creating real-time and historical dashboards. There are also various workforce optimization tools, gamification features, and quality management tools to explore.
Features:
- Outbound auto dialer
- AI summaries, insights, and a generative AI studio
- Workflow automation and workforce management
- Customizable agent and supervisor dashboards
- Employee performance and customer interaction analysis
- Gamification tools
Best for: Businesses looking to improve agent coaching and quality management through real-time transcriptions and AI-generated call summaries.
How to Choose the Right Quality Management Tool
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to choosing the best quality management software for your contact center. There are numerous factors to consider, including your specific business needs and goals, the size of your company and even the industry you operate in.
When comparing your options, think carefully about:
- Your budget: Consider the cost of the software you’re implementing as well as the potential return on investment it can offer. Carefully evaluate the total cost of ownership, which includes expenses associated with deploying and maintaining the software on an ongoing basis.
- Customer support: Ensure your vendor offers exceptional customer support and guidance. Things to look out for include robust and comprehensive documentation, assistance with employee training, and a responsive team of technical experts.
- Flexibility: Ensure your quality management technology can integrate seamlessly with your CRM software, workforce management tools, and any other essential tools that are part of your technology stack.
Finally, consider whether you want to integrate quality management software with your existing contact center or implement an all-in-one solution. A contact center platform that includes quality monitoring tools can save you time and money on implementation and deliver a better experience for your employees.
To find out more about different quality management solutions for contact centers, schedule a call with a ComputerTalk expert.
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