What is Call Scoring? Guide to improving agents performance

First-class customer support over the phone is what separates a great call center from its competitors. It’s crucial, then, for your agents to be at their best day in and day out. This will ensure top-notch service and lead to satisfied clients.

Call scoring is one of the ways that you can maintain top-tier customer service and improve the performances of your agents over time.

What is Call Scoring?

Call scoring is a systematic evaluation of phone call data against predetermined performance criteria, resulting in an assigned ‘score.’ Although commonly associated with call centers, its efficiency is highly valuable for marketing and sales teams alike.

Call scoring helps you evaluate your employees while they are on the phone with customers, which will allow you to bring the quality of their calls in line with your company’s standards. According to Time Doctor, 64% of businesses today rely on call scoring to record customer feedback.

Call scoring is not only useful for detecting problems and issues; it also helps you identify your strengths and build on them. 

There are several methods for call scoring.

Here are some of them:

• Real-time call monitoring
• Analyzing call records
• Automated call rating systems

The choice of call scoring method usually depends on the number of agents being monitored. 

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Also, the more detailed the call scoring is, the better the results and chances for performance improvement are. 

Best Practices for Scoring Contact Center Calls

To make sure that your call scoring methods are as effective as possible, you need to use appropriate monitoring criteria. 

Call scoring criteria help ensure your agents are evaluated fairly. This sort of objective assessment will allow you to compare agents against one another and identify those that could benefit from extra practice or a development program. 

In summary, specific and detailed criteria will lead to a better assessment of how your agents are performing.

Another way to evaluate agent performance is through the use of key performance indicators. 

Here are some best practices on how score your call center agents and improve your their performance: 

#1 Use customer feedback 

After every call, make sure to reach out to customers and ask them to provide feedback in some form. This will give you valuable insights into their experience and expectations.

#2 Identify your weak performers

By identifying struggling agents, you will know where to focus your improvement efforts.

#3 Use real-time statistics

Real-time statistics can help your agents keep track of their progress. It can also motivate them to improve the quality of their service.

#4 Continuously train your call center representatives

Consistent training can help your agents develop their skills and make the best use of their abilities.

#5 Provide your agents with timely feedback 

When agents are doing something right, they need to be made aware of it. The same goes for when they are doing something wrong. Therefore, timely feedback can be of great benefit for agents and, over time, improve their performance.

Tips on how to make the best use of call scoring

#1 Anticipate and react to your callers’ needs

Besides improving customer experience, call monitoring can also allow you to have an insight into the callers’ needs. 

By using real-time call monitoring, you can see how customers are responding to different agents and different communication techniques. 

Based on their reaction, you can tell which type of communication technique works best for them. 

CloudTalk’s real-time call monitoring features allow you to listen to calls without interrupting either your agents or their callers. If you have a suggestion to make to your agent, there is also an option that allows you to whisper information to him without notifying the caller.

Additionally, you can also join calls where you can interact with both the agent and the caller, should they require your assistance. 

Call scoring can be used for brainstorming, too. Together with your agents you can review calls step-by-step, and see what can be done to improve these conversations and, by extension, customer experience.

Another benefit is that by listening to agents’ morning, afternoon, and evening calls, you can also see how fatigue affects the quality of their interactions. You can work together to find the best solutions.

#2 Encourage healthy competition between your agents

Call scoring can also encourage healthy competition between your agents. Consider rewarding those agents that perform the best, and you will see an all-around improvement in no time. 

This will also boost your agents’ confidence and keep them motivated to improve their performance. 

Also, it will likely boost their creativity and elevate their thinking about how to provide the best customer support.

In this way, call monitoring will become a competition where everybody wins. It’s a great way to keep your customers happy and satisfied with your services.

Conclusion

A simple rule in every business is to learn from your mistakes and grow from your success. So, for things to become better, one needs to reduce the negative factors affecting your work, increase the positive ones, and multiply what works well. 

In the call center business, call scoring allows you to do just that. By analyzing a few calls, you can already understand how your agents are performing. Thus, you may enhance the positive sides of your teams’ work and improve what can be done better. 

In that way, they will meet clients’ needs, strive to exceed expectations, and deliver excellent customer service.