After listening to thousands of phone calls and working together with Communicators, the quality assurance department developed what is known as the quality skills assessment (QSA). Broken down into specific criteria, the QSA measures the quality of every phone call — from the time the Communicator says hello, until the call is complete.

Communicators receive a minimum of four Q3® evaluations per month from the Q3® team. The QSA is broken into several sections, including content, requests, grammar and punctuation, script procedure and closing. Each section is further segmented into specific standards Communicators must meet or avoid in order to make a successful call. The quality assurance department has assigned a specific value to each area based on how much it affects the overall call. The assessment reviews more than 130 details of each phone call.

A Communicator receives a monthly QSA score based on a 130-point scale — 110 or higher being exceptional, 100 – 109 average, and anything below 100 needing improvement. These scores are a compilation of the two scores recorded bimonthly by a call center quality skills analyst.

Program Supervisors conduct evaluations of their team members so they can recognize each Communicator’s strengths and weaknesses. This enables them to effectively coach Communicators on their teams.

IQA is the final check of a fair evaluation. All scores are tallied by this department and reflect total center quality. The quality assurance department uses this information to help improve any centers or Communicators that lack in certain areas. QA then compares all of the call centers’ ratings and recognizes the call center with the highest overall rating each month.

Because program supervisors, call center quality skills analysts and IQA staff members do not necessarily listen to the same phone calls by the same Communicators, the quality assurance department allows for some variation in the QSAs. To ensure that everyone uses the same guidelines when assessing Communicators, the quality assurance department performs frequent calibration exercises in which everyone evaluates the same taped call. The QSAs are then compared to discover any discrepancies in the assessment process and provide extra training or clarification when needed.