Quality assurance (QA)
Quality assurance (QA) in a contact center or sales team is the regular review of conversations against agreed criteria, so that quality is measured, discussed and improved.
What it is
Numbers like speed and volume say how much work was done. QA says how well it was done. A reviewer, often a team lead or a dedicated specialist, takes a sample of conversations and checks them against a fixed list: was the client greeted, was the need understood, was the answer correct, were the rules followed, was the next step agreed.
How it looks in practice
A common rhythm: a set number of conversations per person per week, chosen at random plus a few flagged ones such as complaints or long chats. Each is scored on a scorecard, and the result is a percentage.
An illustrative example: 10 chats per agent per week, each scored out of 100 points. An agent with an average of 72 gets feedback on the two criteria where points were lost most often, with real quotes from the conversations.
Why it matters
QA is how a manager sees what clients actually hear. It catches risks early: wrong promises, rude phrases, broken rules on what can be said to a client. It also gives material for training, because the best examples of the team become the standard for everyone.
The typical mistake
Turning QA into a search for guilty people. When reviews only produce penalties, agents learn to play safe and the conversations become robotic. Another trap is a sample that is too small or always the same type, which gives a picture that does not match reality. Agree the criteria with the team, calibrate reviewers so that two people score the same chat the same way, and spend most of the review time on what to do differently next time.
More in Signals
- Sales rep performance review: how to judge the conversation, not the personReview a rep’s work with a scorecard of five to seven criteria and a simple yes, partly, no scale, on a small sample of conversations: a few per person each week, some random and some that matter. Reviewers regularly compare their scores with each other, and the result is discussed one on one: a good example first, a question instead of a verdict, one thing to improve. You judge the conversation, not the person, and the team knows the criteria in advance.
- Call center KPIs for messaging apps: what to measure when agents type instead of talkIn messaging apps, classic call center KPIs change meaning: average handle time loses weight, while first response time, service level, missed conversations and resolution in a single conversation move to the front. New metrics appear that calls never had: concurrent conversations and promises kept. Measure them in working hours and together, never one at a time.