With Auto QA and Real-Time Agent Assist, a leading HR people management software company has significantly improved service quality while empowering over 300 agents to reduce transfer rates and minimize call escalations.
With over 2.5 million users across the United States, the leading HR people management software company is an integral part of its clients’ operations. Its human resources software simplifies compliance and HR tasks crucial for businesses navigating complex workforce management needs. That’s why the company’s ability to promptly address customer inquiries and maintain excellent service standards is imperative for ensuring client satisfaction.
But without a dedicated quality team in its contact center, the midwest-based company faced difficulties in effectively evaluating its agents’ performance. This issue—along with the need to boost first call resolution rates and reduce call transfers between agents or Advocates—prompted a search for improvements.
Through strategic initiatives and AI-driven technology from Observe.AI, the company has set new benchmarks for customer service delivery. The company has improved coaching and quality performance, reduced transfers, and increased its overall first call resolution rate.
Like many organizations, the company faced challenges in maintaining consistent performance metrics and effective coaching strategies. It needed to identify the factors negatively impacting key metrics, such as average handle time (AHT), and call efficiency.
However, due to limited capacity for agent evaluations, coaching was less effective and frontline staff had low visibility, affecting overall performance. The company sought a solution to better understand key performance drivers, track these metrics at scale, and improve outcomes through enhanced coaching.
“There’s also a whole abundance of knowledge that our frontline Advocates need to serve our customers,” says the former Quality Manager and now Senior Manager for CX Quality at the company. “How do we take that knowledge and present it in an easy, quick fashion to our Advocates?”
Another issue the Senior Manager for CX Quality and her team aimed to address was the absence of instant support during customer interactions. “We wanted to provide clear and consistent guidance for every call, so it’s quick and easy for Advocates to understand,” she adds.
To address these challenges, the team devised a strategic roadmap to strengthen its quality assurance (QA) practices, partnering with Observe.AI for its comprehensive conversation intelligence platform and post-interaction AI.
Together, they set up “Moments”—the crucial points in an agent’s interaction with a customer—to enable their identification at scale across the company’s contact center data. The team then created an evaluation form and adjusted their system to better align with customer interactions.
This ultimately led to the rollout of Observe.AI Auto QA, a product that analyzes exchanges with customers and offers insights to improve agent performance. It assesses every interaction based on Moments criteria—including the use of appropriate greetings, verification procedures, and closing techniques—ensuring a thorough evaluation.
In these Moments, an agent’s ability to empathetically acknowledge a customer, reassure them effectively, and address their concerns is essential. This approach enhances customer satisfaction, aligning seamlessly with the company’s commitment to delivering exceptional service.
Today, Auto QA has evaluated more than 600,000 interactions for the compay since the launch of Auto QA in August 2022. The solution swiftly identifies trends and patterns in customer conversations to inform focused coaching and drive continuous improvement. In fact, the Senior Manager for CX Quality’s team has refined its coaching practices and reduced agents’ AHT by 5% since establishing a QA program and adopting Auto QA.
By evaluating all customer interactions, the team has uncovered coaching opportunities more rapidly, increasing its operational efficiency at scale.
“We’re now aligned as a team and consistent with our coaching and quality performance metrics across our virtual footprint,” shares the Senior Manager for CX Quality. “We’ve been able to increase our quality score by 19% through the team’s diligence and commitment to improving our overall contact center performance using Observe.AI.”
These results encouraged the team to explore augmenting agent capabilities and thus improve their overall efficiency and customer service quality. They recently rolled out Observe.AI Real-Time Agent Assist (RTAA) to help more than 300 agents enhance their responsiveness and problem-solving abilities.
This innovative product provides contextual information, including smart scripts for consistent service and dynamic prompts for assistance during live customer interactions. Smart scripts are shown on every call to guide agents, while dynamic prompts appear only when needed, such as when a customer calls about incorrect payroll deduction, aiding agents with quick access to relevant information.
With prompts and smart scripts tailored to their job functions, agents can engage customers with a deep understanding of their needs and concerns.
“We can ask our Advocates quick questions, get right to the root, and give the response, guidance, or information they need in the moment,” says the Senior Manager for CX Quality.
She adds that Observe.AI’s automated summarization of post-call notes is a core part of the ability to capture and present crucial information rapidly. This functionality not only saves agents time but also ensures consistent, accurate documentation of customer interactions, improving efficiency and service quality. In addition, it enables better training, data analysis, and integration with CRM systems, enhancing overall operational effectiveness.
“Previously, our Advocates were provided 5 minutes of after-call work. We’ve been able to reduce that to 3 minutes and gain some efficiency. And Advocates really enjoy it,” notes the Senior Manager for CX Quality. “But another benefit to us as an organization is that it captures the specific details of what happened during a conversation.”
This facilitates better issue resolution and provides actionable insights for informed decision-making.
With the implementation of RTAA, the company has reduced its transfer rate from 20% to around 17% and minimized the need to escalate calls. This has resulted in smoother customer interactions and improved operational efficiency.
“We ensure we give Advocates real-time guidance on what to do and how to do it,” says the Senior Manager for CX Quality. “Also, from a process perspective, this capability gives the advocate the ability to ask, ‘Am I directing this customer to the right next person?’ So, the combination of those things has definitely helped decrease our transfers.”
Likewise, early in the RTAA rollout at the company, the team saw a decline in its first call resolution rate. It started at 13% and dropped to a consistent 9%, leading to minimized customer wait times, reduced repeat contact, and increased satisfaction levels.
The Senior Manager for CX Quality attributes part of this reduction to the use of smart scripts, which offer real-time assistance to agents. “They really helped our Advocates when customers called in for guidance on how to proceed, where to go, and what steps to take.”
Remarkably, RTAA’s implementation has sparked an increase in engagement among agents and managers, according to a Senior Quality Analyst at the company.
“They have begun to take a closer look at the quality of work day to day,” she says. “They ask questions like, ‘Why did this work this way?’ or ‘How can I enhance this?’ This increased curiosity translates to more hands-on involvement from our frontline partners.”
As the company continues its journey toward contact center excellence, it remains committed to driving innovation and transformation by harnessing AI technology and data-driven insights.
“With Observe.AI as a partner, we’re well positioned to seize new opportunities in delivering exceptional customer service,” says the Senior Manager for CX Quality. “This partnership reinforces our commitment to helping clients effectively navigate the complexities of HR management.
“Moving forward, we’re looking to implement Gen AI Moments to automate subjective QA questions and ensure continuous improvement.”
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