What's the difference between call QA and call coaching?

What is call QA?

Call Centre Helper defines contact centre QA as a process that makes sure services meet an internally agreed standard, and says it "usually refers to monitoring agents' interactions with customers, making sure processes are followed and seeking improvements" (Call Centre Helper, 21 Apr 2017).

In practice: someone listens to a call, fills in a scorecard, and records a score. QA answers "how did that call go, measured against our standard?"

What is call coaching?

Coaching is what happens next: a manager and a rep talk about a call and agree what to do differently. One Call Centre Helper contributor put the split simply: "coaching focuses on the future in the same way that reviews focus on the past" (Call Centre Helper, 12 Mar 2020).

Topic	Call QA	Call coaching
Question it answers	How did this call go against our standard?	What will you do differently next time?
Looks at	The past call	The next call
Output	A score and evidence	One agreed change
Done by	QA analyst, manager or software	A manager or peer, with the rep
Fails when	Scores nobody acts on	Advice not tied to a real call

Why do you need both?

Because measuring doesn't change behaviour on its own. Another Call Centre Helper contributor wrote: "If a major goal of contact centre quality assurance is to evaluate the quality of agent performance, it's coaching that actually drives improvement" (Call Centre Helper, 27 Aug 2020).

SQM Group's research points to the gap. It found that 95% of call centres use call monitoring and coaching to improve QA scores and customer satisfaction, but only 17% of agents believe their QA efforts improve customer satisfaction (SQM Group, 12 Apr 2023). If reps don't see the link, the scores are just paperwork to them.

How do you connect QA to coaching?

1. 1

   Score the call

   On a short scorecard, with a quote for each answer.

2. 2

   Pick one item

   The lowest-scoring item that matters most. One, not five.

3. 3

   Play the moment

   Listen to the exact part of the call together, using the time stamp.

4. 4

   Agree the change

   What will the rep say next time? Write the actual words.

5. 5

   Check the next calls

   Look at the same item on the rep's next calls to see if it changed.

How many calls should you coach on?

As many as you can follow up. One rule quoted on Call Centre Helper is "Evaluate only as many customer interactions as you can coach to" (Call Centre Helper, 27 Aug 2020). Scoring more calls than you can coach is still useful if the extra scores help you choose which calls to coach, or catch serious problems. See how many calls to review per rep.

Where does Callyst fit?

Callyst does the QA part on every call: it scores each one on your scorecard with a quote as evidence and flags serious problems the same day. It also starts the coaching loop by emailing each rep a short note every weekday morning: what went well, what to fix, and what to say instead. The conversation with a manager is still yours to have.