Explore 7 key quality tools for BPOs to boost efficiency, service quality, and team performance. Learn how to implement them effectively.
Author: Abhilash Dama
"Is your BPO team struggling to deal with complex workflows and lost opportunities?"
It is quite common for BPOs to face challenges like long call queues, late replies, and disconnected communication. These problems can affect productivity and customer satisfaction. But what if you could fix that with the right quality tools and 10X your team’s productivity?
The need for quality management tools in BPO is increasing significantly. In fact, the global market for quality management software is projected to rise to about USD 20.66 billion by 2030, up from USD 11.14 billion in 2024, pointing to the growing importance of these tools for improving BPO performance.
In this blog, I will tell you about 7 QC tools that can help your team optimise operations, enhance service quality, and boost overall efficiency. Let’s take a deeper look at how these tools are revolutionising the BPO by making it smarter and efficient.
In BPO operations, quality control (QC) tools are vital for maintaining smooth operations, quality of services, and driving efficiency. These tools are not just about tracking performance. They assist in finding bottlenecks, optimise processes, and share best practices for continuous improvement.
The following are the 7 QC tools commonly used in BPOs:
Leveraging QC tools in BPO doesn’t just boost efficiency. It directly affects your overall service quality and the productivity of your team. By using these Quality tools, BPO teams can:
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A Control Chart is one of the most powerful QC tools in BPO that can be used to measure and monitor performance over time. This tool gives a visual representation of how a process, like call handling time and customer satisfaction scores, is performing against predefined quality standards. When the process deviates beyond those set limits, the control chart says action is required.
Control charts enable your team to quickly detect changes in performance and make any necessary adjustments. By constantly monitoring important metrics, this tool makes sure BPO operations remain consistent and high-quality, leading to increased efficiency in BPO teams.
Although control charts are highly effective, they depend on precise data input. If the data is incorrect or inconsistent, then the results can be misleading and can lead to wrong decisions.
Consider a team of BPO handling customer support calls. A control chart for call resolution time indicates an unusual increase on Mondays. Upon careful investigation, the team finds out that billing-related inquiries are causing the delays. With this knowledge, the team can redistribute resources to address billing issues separately, making the overall process more efficient.
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A Histogram is a Quality tool that uses bars to visually represent the distribution of data. It demonstrates how often certain values occur and makes it easier to identify patterns and trends. This tool also helps detect areas that need improvement, such as call times and customer satisfaction. It allows teams to take informed, data-driven decisions fast.
With histograms, your team can easily identify where repeated values occur, allowing you to prioritize improvements and make workflow changes as needed. It is an important tool for handling large volumes of data and maintaining high quality in your BPO operations.
While histograms are great for visualising data, they depend on the accuracy and completeness of the input data. If the data is incomplete or wrong, histograms can provide misleading information and lead to bad decisions.
If your BPO team keeps track of call durations, a histogram might reveal that most calls fall within the 5-10 minute range, with a drop after 15 minutes. This indicates that longer calls are problematic, probably due to complex issues and inefficiencies. This can be resolved with focused training and process improvement.
Pareto Analysis, also known as the 80/20 rule, helps find the small number of issues contributing to most of the problems. The idea behind this is that 80% of the issues causing trouble have the same 20% of root causes. By focusing on these key areas, you can enhance efficiency, improve customer satisfaction , and streamline operations.
This approach enables your team to focus their efforts on the most critical tasks, make informed decisions, and provide a better quality of service.
Although pareto analysis is useful, it needs correct data and a deep understanding of root causes. Without proper collection of data, it could mean you are misidentifying root causes and focusing on issues that are less critical.
In a BPO environment, Pareto analysis shows that 80% of call centre delays are generated by 20% of the agents. After closer examination, it becomes clear that these agents are having problems with certain aspects of the process or the tools they work with. By providing targeted training and system improvements for those agents, you can rapidly improve overall call handling time and customer satisfaction.
A Fishbone Diagram, also commonly known as the Ishikawa Diagram, is an effective QC tool in BPO for analysing the root causes of issues. It’s meant to visually display the potential causes of a problem, organising them into various categories (such as people, processes, or systems). It helps your team address the root cause, not just the symptoms.
Fishbone diagrams are particularly good at understanding process inefficiencies, such as delays in handling calls, repeated customer complaints, and they can help your team to make targeted improvements.
Although fishbone diagrams are helpful, they depend on input from several team members and correct data. Without proper input, the diagram might lose key issues, resulting in solutions that are incomplete.
A fishbone diagram in a BPO can show reasons for long call durations, such as delays in the system, agent training, and customer expectations. Correcting problems such as a slow CRM system can shorten call times and improve satisfaction.
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A Scatter Diagram is a QC tool in BPO that provides a visual representation of a relationship between two variables. It relies on points plotted on an X-Y axis to demonstrate how one variable affects another. For example, you can use Scatter Diagrams in BPO operations to analyse factors such as call duration vs. customer satisfaction, or agent performance vs. resolution time.
By finding relationships, this tool enables BPO teams to make decisions based on data to improve performance.
While scatter diagrams are helpful, they rely on precise and consistent data. If the data is wrong or missing, the results could be misleading and lead to wrong conclusions.
In a BPO team handling customer service calls, a scatter diagram can help to compare resolution time for calls with customer satisfaction scores. If the diagram shows that faster resolution times positively correlate with increased customer satisfaction, then they can set their focus on speeding up resolution times to better serve customers.
A Control Process Flow is important in BPO operations for organising workflows and improving efficiency. It helps teams to see every step, define roles, and find bottlenecks. By improving communication and reducing delays it enhances quality control. This powerful tool simplifies processes such as call forwarding or routing and customer complaint management, and increases customer satisfaction.
Identifies Bottlenecks: By visualising the workflow, you can identify stages where delays or inefficiencies occur, making it simple to handle these issues.
Clarifies Roles and Responsibilities: Control flow makes sure that everyone on the team knows their part in the process flow, leading to better coordination and a lower chance of errors.
Improves Communication: A clear flow ensures that there is no confusion over who needs to do what, improving communication across departments and teams.
Increases Efficiency: By streamlining processes, this tool ensures that workflows are optimised, ensuring tasks are completed efficiently and accurately.
A drawback of the Control Process Flow is its need for frequent updates and maintenance. However, if the process flow cannot be corrected in real-time, this may introduce inefficiencies as current challenges or bottlenecks are not taken into account.
In a BPO call centre, a Control Process Flow helps to describe the customer service process by creating a model of the critical steps. If there are any delays, it pinpoints the bottleneck so teams can resolve problems fast. Possible solutions might be to train agents or to find new processes to make the requests easier.
Statistical Process Control (SPC) is a vital QC tool in BPO that uses statistical methods to monitor performance in real time. It assists in spotting variations and errors at an early stage, allowing your team to make corrections quickly and ensure quality service. SPC ensures consistent performance by tracking key indicators and handling issues before they get out of control.
Using this tool, you can enhance BPO processes, increase efficiency, and maintain quality standards without delays.
SPC needs a good data collection system. If the data is not reliable and consistent, SPC could lead to wrong conclusions.
In a BPO environment, SPC can be applied to monitor the average time agents take to resolve customer complaints. If the data indicates the resolution time trend is increasing, the team can identify irregularities such as slow system response times and insufficient agent resources and take corrective steps to ensure high service quality.
Running a BPO requires constant monitoring and quality control, but old tools can be slow and complicated. Instead of having to do things manually, why not use modern technology such as Qoli to make things easier for you? With Qoli’s real-time features, you can increase your team’s performance and service quality without having to deal with outdated tools.
Qoli automatically records and saves all incoming and outgoing calls, making it easy to check call records for up to 2 months. You can see information such as the duration of the call, who made the call, the date, and time. This helps ensure every interaction is captured, giving you the ability to evaluate and boost performance. It’s an effective way to monitor your team’s communication.
As more customer communication happens on platforms such as WhatsApp, Qoli keeps you updated. It monitors WhatsApp messages for quick responses customised to your business needs. This feature enables your team to track conversations, ensuring better communication and happy customers.
Qoli’s live screen monitoring allows you to monitor what your agents are doing on their screens. It also alerts you when app usage goes beyond the parameters you’ve set. You can also establish app usage restrictions and block apps when the usage is exceeded. This leads to a more focused and productive workforce, resulting in more efficiency and better service quality.
Qoli offers  location tracking that also involves geo-fencing and sends alerts whenever an agent goes beyond set boundaries. You can also see their routes and the time spent at each location. This feature increases accountability, streamlines workflows, and improves efficiency.
Quality control tools are important for improving BPO operations, increasing efficiency, and keeping services consistent. From control charts to statistical process control, these tools help businesses to eliminate inefficiencies and maintain high-quality standards. When used correctly, these quality tools can help BPO teams to enhance their decision-making skills, reduce mistakes, and boost customer satisfaction. Adopting these tools will ensure that BPOs remain competitive while constantly improving service delivery.
