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I get it, QA is a necessary evil, but at least hire people who understand the business. Let’s go back to the mid-2000s, smartphones are becoming the norm and I had a gig fixing them for a wireless carrier. A technician calls in (a rare pleasure) and states he has general questions about a smartphone e-mail client on his boss’s phone. He doesn’t have access to the phone, but I’m 99% sure I know exactly what the issue is based on his description. I send him a couple knowledge base articles, he’s happy, call ends.
My manager pulls me from the phone like a week later. That call was scored a 30%. My manager knows that I’ll ignore some of the more idiotic requirements like telling someone I can help them before transferring them, but I never get below 90%.
Now to provide some additional context, the company was spinning down a sales department, they were being replaced with web software. At the same time, fixing smartphones was getting to be a bigger part of our business. They thought good training could makes a sales person a technician, and their sales QA people could QA the greater team’s technical calls. No problem, right? I protest in the team meeting with the call center director. Not like I have any pull, but there are many better ways this could be managed.
Back to my boss’s office, we listen to the call. Boss scores it a 95%. We note the call evaluator completely misunderstood the issue and thought I sent the wrong knowledge base article. Boss wants more ammunition, he calls the technician and asks about my solution. Technician says my diagnosis was correct and the knowledge base article helped him fix the broken setting. He is very happy with the assistance that I and the company provided.
Boss and I go to the director and officially protest the evaluation. My score is changed. I get on my soap box about how you need technical people to review technical solutions. Director is privately sympathetic, but isn’t in a position to effect any change. I start explaining things to a ridiculously unnecessary degree when I see the call monitoring software kick in. Much time is wasted.
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