Call Center Monitoring: 12 Best Practices To Help Your Business Craft a Winning Strategy

What Is call monitoring?

Call monitoring is a term that covers a range of processes undertaken by call center operators to assess and maintain quality assurance. This can include things like managers listening to call recordings, AI analyzing calls both in real-time and on a large scale, and keeping an eye on call logs.

Monitoring calls helps call center teams maintain consistent service standards, while ensuring compliance with legal and regulatory requirements.

Why is call center monitoring important?

Markets are becoming increasingly competitive. Innovative features and affordable price points aren’t the defining factors they once were — instead, customer service is key. But how do you know that you’re providing what your customers want?

In its 2024 Consumer Trends Report, Qualtrics found that customers aren’t giving feedback in the same ways. Direct customer feedback is down 7.2% from 2021. Online reviews (-2.4%) and social media shares (-3.7%) are also trending downward.

Call monitoring focuses on both subtle and direct feedback customers give during live interactions. Managers and supervisors (as well as AI!) can pick up on customer frustration, even when agents might not.

Call monitoring also helps you stay on top of agent performance. Assessing each team member’s strengths and weaknesses informs training tactics. It’s a gold mine for learning what service areas to focus on.

How many calls should be monitored in a call center?

In an ideal world, you’d be able to monitor every single customer call. For many businesses, this is simply impossible. At any given point in time, your team is handling dozens or hundreds of calls simultaneously. How can your call center supervisors and managers hope to listen to every interaction?

There isn’t a definitive industry standard for the number of calls you need to monitor. If you think in percentages, anywhere from 1-4% can be acceptable. For many call centers, this comes down to four to eight calls per agent per month.

Luckily, advances in technology mean you don’t have to do this all manually. Instead, you can use the in-built tools that come with many call center services to calculate metrics. Even better, if you have access to speech analytics, you can assess every call in real-time. Reporting dashboards give managers access to live customer sentiment and other metrics.

You can’t monitor every call with human team members. You can monitor every call with the help of speech recognition and analytics.

Who is responsible for call center quality assurance?

Call quality assurance (QA) falls first and foremost to your quality analysts. It’s their job to monitor and evaluate call center interactions. They listen to calls, review transcripts and notes, and assess the performance of every agent. QA scorecards are often used to present a comprehensive performance overview to key stakeholders.

Call center managers and supervisors oversee daily activities. They steer team members toward business objectives. However, they’re also responsible for QA, working with analysts to align and improve agent training.

Your call center agents are also responsible for quality assurance. It’s up to them to give consistent, high-level assistance to every customer.

What are the benefits of effective monitoring?

The American Customer Satisfaction Index is at an all-time high of 78%. However, that doesn’t mean every organization is putting its best service foot forward — and it still leaves just over a fifth of U.S. customers walking away from a call unsatisfied.

Let’s take a look at what call monitoring can do to help your business and customers, and ensure you stand out from the crowd.

1. Shorter handling and waiting times

Monitoring streamlines call handling. Supervisors who listen to calls can step in with much-needed assistance or take over calls for faster resolutions. You can also work out which agents are best at handling which topics, improving your skills-based routing and directing calls in the most effective ways. That means your agents can handle more calls in less time, lowering average hold times.

2. Enhanced agent performance

Focused assessments and training from call monitoring help your agents work on their weaknesses. Plus, arming your team with the right knowledge and skills helps them solve customer problems more efficiently. Everyone gets a morale boost when they can do their job effectively.

3. Higher first-call resolution

Customers don’t want to have to call back to get an answer to their problems, and they don’t want to be passed from agent to agent to agent until the right one is found. Stronger agents and rapid assistance from higher-ups increase the likelihood of resolution.

4. Better customer experience

Call monitoring improves the effectiveness of your call center. Agents are trained to find answers and solve issues quickly, while also sticking to quality standards. Customers walk away with a better impression of your company and its support team.

5. Improved compliance

Call monitoring doesn’t only improve customer service and agent performance. It also helps your QA team keep an eye on whether company policies, procedures, and regulatory requirements are being followed. Should an allegation take place, monitoring practices like call recordings can provide accurate records of what happened, making it easy to resolve.

Types of call center monitoring

Call center monitoring shouldn’t be treated as a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, it needs to be undertaken with specific goals in mind. For instance, if you want to improve the average time spent on a call, you’ll want to focus on those long calls to work out what’s causing them. Whereas if you’re looking to improve overall satisfaction, sentiment analysis is your friend.

To achieve your customer service goals, consider the following types of call monitoring:

• Real-time monitoring involves AI assessing calls as they happen. Quality assurance tools give real-time insights, tracking metrics like intent and sentiment analysis.

• Call recording keeps a record for evaluation, training, and compliance purposes. Recordings are typically stored in the cloud so anyone (with permission) can access them at any time. Agents can also listen to their own calls for self-assessments and to recall important details.

• Speech analytics involves tools like large language models (LLMs). Every call is automatically transcribed and fully searchable for managers and supervisors. Vocabulary, key terms, and other speech patterns are analyzed for quality standards.

• Performance tracking. This involves tracking metrics like average handling time (AHT), number of calls handled, and after-call work time.

• Whisper and barge monitoring. Supervisors can monitor live calls, “whispering” guidance to secretly help agents, or “barging” into the conversation with a solution when time is of the essence. This is particularly useful for training new team members or helping agents who struggle with certain topics.

Call center monitoring: Key metrics and KPIs to track 

If you’re monitoring calls, you need to understand why. Picking out key metrics and KPIs to monitor is the first step. Some common ones to keep an eye on include:

• Call abandonment rate. How many callers hang up out of frustration or due to long hold times? Tracking call abandonment rates helps you identify bottlenecks in your call flow process.

• Average handling time (AHT) measures the average duration of a customer interaction. AHT includes talk time, hold time, and any after-call work (ACW).

• First-call resolution (FCR) refers to the percentage of calls that are resolved on the first contact. Customers like quick answers. They’re frustrated by having to call back or repeat themselves to multiple agents. Ensure FCR is in line with the benchmarks for your industry.

• Customer satisfaction scores (CSAT). As mentioned, great customer service is vital for winning customers over. CSAT is measured from customer feedback surveys conducted after each interaction, and helps you make sure you’re meeting their needs. Combine this with net promoter scores (NPS) to monitor your brand reputation.

If you want to learn more about which KPIs to monitor, check out our guides on call center metrics and customer engagement metrics.

How to monitor call center performance: Best practices

Now you know why it’s important to monitor call center performance. But how do you get started? Here are some best practices to get you started:

1. Define key metrics and KPIs

Every good business strategy starts with goals and objectives. Consult with your call center managers, QA managers, and relevant C-level executives. What needs to be addressed in your current customer service channels? Where can improvements be made? What are your primary differentiators from other business call centers?

Once you know your goals, you can define the key metrics and KPIs. Prioritizes these metrics for tracking and assessment and set realistic, achievable goals. Maybe you want to increase your FCR to 5% above the industry average. Or perhaps you want to make sure your agent training is helping by focusing on if average hold time is reduced.

2. Implement monitoring tools and technologies

Depending on listening to calls manually will get you nowhere fast. Instead, research what call center solutions are available and what packages they offer. Tools that include AI-powered options like sentiment analysis are well worth the expense if you have a large team or a lot of incoming calls.

3. Set up real-time monitoring

Whatever the call center solution, set up real-time monitoring capabilities right away. Turn on features like automatic call recording and live speech analytics. Train your supervisors and call center managers on how to set up their reporting dashboards. They’ll want to be able to customize analytics to focus on the most important call metrics. 

Real-time monitoring ensures your team has the right tools to track quality assurance.

4. Conduct quality assurance (QA) reviews

Conduct regular QA reviews to assess if your call center tactics are aligned with business goals. Quality assurance reviews identify common customer issues and pain points, as well as providing insight into the efficacy of your training and scripts.

Use QA scorecards as evaluation tools to guide managers and analysts when reviewing call quality. Scorecards keep every assessment consistent, efficient, and focused on the most critical areas.

5. Analyze performance data

Your chosen solutions should have the aforementioned reporting and analytics dashboards. Combine these with historical analysis, and you can easily track performance averages for both individuals and teams. By monitoring metrics such as average waiting time and average speed to answer, you can notice trends — both positive and negative — and act on them quickly.

6. Provide regular feedback and training

Half of quality assurance is assessment. The other half? Putting insight into action.

Have your supervisors give regular feedback to agents on how they’re performing. Remember, constructive criticism is key. Don’t just point out what a team member is doing wrong. Train your reps with one-to-one coaching, roleplay, group activities, and online courses.

7. Survey customers

Nobody is better suited to judge your call quality than your customers. You can use social listening tools to keep an eye on review sites and social media platforms. We all know those who have a bad experience are typically the loudest on those feedback channels.

Many call center platforms make it easy to automate customer feedback surveys. Solutions like Vonage offer web-based, voice call, messaging, and email surveys to garner customer input.

Glean information while the experience is still fresh in their minds. Remember, it’s not only about finding out what went wrong but also what your team did well.

8. Benchmark performance

Take an initial performance assessment to establish your baselines. Compare common call center metrics against the benchmarks for your industry. Then set targets for your team. The baseline serves as an indicator of improvement or potential issues with call quality.

For example, imagine an agent is handling fewer calls per shift than your average rep. This might mean they need re-training in areas like problem-solving and escalation criteria — or it might mean your routing guidelines are sending calls to the agents that are outside their capabilities. Having baselines gives you something to monitor them against, meaning you’ll notice them standing out and be able to fix the problem.

9. Utilize predictive analytics

We’ve mentioned using real-time and historical data. But you can also make use of predictive analytics. This will give you forecasts for metrics like demand, FCR, and CSAT. As you implement improvements, predictions will evolve, giving you a clearer idea if you’re on the right track.

Predictive analytics can also forecast seasonal trends and changes in customer behavior.

10. Ensure compliance and security

Customer satisfaction should be your number one priority. However, it’s not the only thing call monitoring can help with. Tracking and analyzing calls helps you stay compliant with legal and regulatory requirements. For example, call recordings, speech analysis, and transcripts all help you track compliance with laws such as the GDPR or HIPAA.

Quality assurance measures such as scorecards identify potential data privacy or security risks. Agents who fail to adhere to standards such as following scripts can be retrained to ensure future compliance.

11. Foster a culture of continuous improvement

Call monitoring isn’t something you do for a short period and then forget about it. It’s a critical contributor to your QA and the growth of your business. Foster a culture of continuous progression by taking a constructive approach to agent feedback.

Reward your team for hitting and exceeding goals. Use peer recognition programs and team messaging channels to “shout out” high performers. Consider enticing agents to improve with incentives such as gifts, seasonal bonuses, and other rewards.

Managers should lead by example, looking inward at how they can be better. Create an environment where it’s okay to make mistakes as long as you’re willing to learn from them.

12. Report and communicate findings

Gathering data is only useful if you put it into action. Your agents and supervisors won’t improve if you don’t relay your findings and provide guidance. A recent Gallup Poll indicates that U.S. employee engagement is 32%. You want your agents to be as actively engaged in customer service as possible. Providing information on how they’re doing, as well as opportunities to grow, is a great way to boost employee engagement (and call quality).

Challenges in call center monitoring

Call center monitoring is a great tool for improving how your team operates. At the same time, it can produce challenges when running your call center, such as:

• Large volumes of data. Most solutions will gather, analyze, and interpret huge amounts of information. Knowing where to begin can be difficult with so much data at your fingertips. It’s also tempting to focus on the wrong KPIs and ignore more valuable metrics.

• Finding the right people. Quality assurance isn’t for everyone. It’s a demanding role that requires meticulous attention to detail. It also requires an analytical mindset and patience for repetitive tasks.

• Maintaining privacy compliance. Listening to, recording, and transcribing calls complicates customer data protection. Customers must be made aware their calls are being monitored, and each employee must be familiar with and adhere to consumer data privacy regulations.

• Integrating existing systems. You probably already have business tools that work for you. Many call center platforms don’t play so nicely with older and legacy systems. Integrating apps such as your CRM with your call center software isn’t always straightforward or seamless.

Optimize your call center performance through effective monitoring

In summary, call monitoring is an essential component of any high-performing call center. Tracking customer interactions helps you ensure quality assurance and raise agent handling abilities. Your customers will get faster answers to their questions and have an overall better experience.

By choosing the right platform, you can make this easy. Vonage Business Communications has options for call recording, comprehensive call logs, and integrations with numerous other business tools. Plus, our Communications APIs and AI Acceleration Suite allow for customizable solutions suited to your specific needs.