Sylar Cloud
A contact center's reports say how many calls were answered, how long they lasted and how many were abandoned. What they don't say is how they were handled: whether the agent greeted well, gave the right information, followed the legal script or the customer hung up more upset than when they called. That's what qualityis for: reviewing a sample of interactions and evaluating them with clear criteria.
Why it matters so much
1. It protects the customer experience
A single bad interaction can cost a customer. Quality catches errors before they become a pattern: incorrect information, lack of empathy, promises that can't be kept.
2. It reduces legal and compliance risk
In collections, healthcare, insurance or financial services there are mandatory phrases, schedules and data handling rules that must be followed. The evaluation verifies that the agent complies and leaves evidence that the company monitors it.
3. It turns supervision into training
Quality is not for punishing, it is for teaching. Each evaluation shows what the agent does well and where they can improve, with real examples from their own interactions. It is the most concrete training there is.
4. It improves business results
An agent who handles objections well sells more; one who negotiates clearly recovers more receivables; one who resolves on first contact reduces repeat calls. Quality connects agent behavior with the operation's indicators.
5. It gives data to decide
If many agents fail the same item, the problem isn't the people but the process, the script or the training. Quality makes it visible.
How to do quality well
A form with clear, weighted criteria
Organize the form into sections (greeting, identification, solution, closing, compliance) with weights that add up to 100%. Distinguish between:
- Critical errors: what can never fail, such as verifying identity or giving mandatory legal information.
- Improvement opportunities: what affects the experience but doesn't put the customer or the company at risk.
Each item is answered with Yes, No or Not applicable. What doesn't apply to that interaction must be excluded from the calculation, so the agent isn't penalized for something they didn't have to do.
A random, representative sample
It isn't possible to listen to every call. The recommendation is to take a random sample from each agent and campaign, with a fixed number per period, so everyone is evaluated fairly and not just the cases someone picked.
All channels, not just voice
WhatsApp chats and emails are also customer service. An agent can be excellent on the phone and unclear in writing; evaluate each channel with the criteria that fit it.
Feedback and commitment
Evaluation only works if it reaches the agent. Define a threshold, for example 80%: above it, congratulations; below it, feedback with the points to improve and a commitment that the agent records. In the next evaluation you check whether they improved.
Calibration between evaluators
Two evaluators should arrive at the same score for the same interaction. Bring them together periodically to evaluate the same cases and adjust criteria, so the score depends on the agent and not on who evaluated them.
Common mistakes
- Evaluating only when there is a complaint: quality becomes synonymous with punishment.
- 50-item forms that nobody wants to fill out.
- Scores that are never discussed with the agent.
- Always evaluating the same people or only the easy-to-find interactions.
- Not reviewing trends: you fix case by case and the underlying problem remains.
How artificial intelligence helps
The biggest limit of traditional quality is time: an evaluator listens to few calls a day. With AI, the process changes:
- Automatic pre-evaluation: AI reads the transcript of the call, chat or email and proposes the answer for each item on the form.
- The evaluator reviews and corrects instead of starting from scratch, and can evaluate many more interactions in the same time.
- AI learns from the corrections and gets closer and closer to your team's criteria.
Quality in Sylar Cloud
The Quality module of the CRM of Sylar Cloud includes versioned forms with sections and weights, random sampling per campaign with caps, AI pre-evaluation for calls, chats and emails, and the My quality option where each agent sees their evaluations and records their commitment. See the plans and pricing.