Quality assurance has a reputation problem in contact centres. For many agents, a QA review feels like surveillance — an exercise in finding fault rather than helping them improve. For many managers, QA is a compliance exercise rather than a development tool.
This doesn’t have to be the case. Done well, quality assurance is one of the most powerful development tools available to contact centre leaders.
The Problem with Traditional QA
Traditional QA programmes typically involve a QA specialist listening to a sample of recorded calls and scoring them against a checklist. The scores are reported to agents and managers, with low scores triggering additional monitoring or coaching conversations.
The problems with this approach are multiple. The sample size is usually too small to be statistically meaningful — a handful of calls per agent per month doesn’t provide reliable insight into performance patterns. The scoring is often subjective and inconsistent. The feedback loop is slow — an agent might not hear about a QA finding until weeks after the call occurred.
What Good QA Looks Like
At Telnet, we’ve built a QA programme that prioritises development over compliance. Our use of Amazon Connect Contact Lens means we can assess far more calls than traditional sampling allows — and identify patterns across an agent’s performance, not just individual call scores.
But technology is only part of the solution. The more important change is cultural: QA findings are shared in a coaching context rather than a disciplinary one. The question we ask isn’t “what did this agent do wrong?” but “what would help this agent serve customers better?”
This shift in framing changes how agents engage with QA feedback. When agents experience QA as something that’s helping them improve rather than monitoring them for failure, they become active participants in their own development. That’s when QA becomes genuinely powerful.
