Nataliia Onyshkevych is COO at EverHelp, a customer support outsourcing company. Experienced in all support roles.
Mistakes can often lead to hilarious stories we all love to share. But let’s be real—not every blunder ends up being funny. After spending my fair share of time in customer support, I’ve seen how even small slip-ups can become big business headaches.
Customer support quality often requires a delicate balance between speed and effectiveness. However, I don’t think prioritizing a quick response means you have to compromise on service quality. The key is to find that ideal sweet spot where both speed and quality coexist.
I hope the lessons my team has picked up along the way can inspire you to give a little extra care to your own customer support quality. It truly makes a difference.
The Real Costs Of Bad Customer Support
Let’s start on a light note. Recently, one of my teammates, under tight deadlines, responded to a customer ticket and ended up relying on the CRM system a bit too much. The system auto-filled the customer’s name as “babygirl123.” The teammate, without verifying the name, began their response with “Dear Baby,” resulting in a highly unprofessional and inappropriate greeting to the customer.
Surprisingly, the customer found the mix-up hilarious and ended up having a good laugh about it. This little mishap not only added some fun to their exchange but also reminded all of us about the importance of double-checking details.
But this “Baby” incident is an exception. Real mistakes cost. Here’s another story from my team: A customer called in for support and asked about a new service. The agent, lacking training on the new service, was unable to understand or assist the customer who was inquiring about it even after the customer repeatedly explained the inquiry and spelled out the service name a few times.
Within a minute, the client hung up, and that was the last we heard from him. This lack of knowledge led to the customer becoming frustrated and ending the call, resulting in a failed potential sale. We’ll never know how many more followed. That’s the price of poor training. This lack of proper oversight and help center documentation can also disrupt internal processes, leading to longer ticket handling times and further exacerbating issues by leading to bottlenecks and backlogs.
For example, I often think of a client case when, after a new software update, the support team was poorly briefed. Customers calling in were met with agents who struggled to navigate the new interface themselves.
This resulted in increased calls and call times, which led to a rapid buildup of unanswered tickets. This backlog grew exponentially as more customers encountered problems with the update. The company was forced to hire additional support agents to address the growing backlog and customer dissatisfaction, which resulted in increased operational costs.
Proper training and proactive communication could have prevented this. And the risks go even deeper than the financial. Poor quality control can land you in hot water legally if you’re not keeping up with regulations like GDPR, CCPA or PCI DSS. Your reputation is important not just for customer satisfaction but also for the very survival of your business.
Making Support Quality A Powerful Brand Loyalty Driver
Investing in quality control not only safeguards your bottom line but also builds a lasting relationship with your customers. By catching inefficiencies early on, you can avoid the pitfalls of refunds, chargebacks and customer churn.
When launching a new product feature, you want to ensure that your support team is fully prepared before rollout. I recommend you start by providing comprehensive (and fun) training that covers key details, common customer concerns and troubleshooting steps.
In my above case, once we introduced a dedicated quality control system, customer satisfaction scores soared to an impressive 96%, far exceeding industry benchmarks.
Based on my experience, the key elements that a quality control system should include are:
• Defined metrics. Clear, measurable KPIs are essential for tracking progress and identifying areas for improvement.
• Regular audits. Consistent reviews of customer interactions for identifying trends and ensuring commitment to quality standards.
• Constructive feedback. Providing timely and crystal-clear feedback to support agents.
• Continuous training: Ongoing training to keep agents up to date.
• Customer reviews. Actively asking for customer feedback provides the best insights into customer needs and expectations.
• A culture of improvement. Your company must create an environment where agents feel okay with feedback and like the quality control system is a tool to help them grow.
A Few Practical Steps For Improving Quality Control
Transparency is key: Clear metrics and documented processes build trust. However, diverse evaluators can create inconsistencies. To combat this, clearly define managerial roles in standardizing evaluations.
One of the most significant challenges we face with teams is resistance to feedback. Agents often perceive evaluations as criticism; especially agents who have just joined a team tend to be defensive, fearing scrutiny and punishment and lacking an understanding of the evaluation’s purpose.
For instance, one recent agent immediately questioned her first evaluation, stating, “I don’t understand why I got a low score on ’empathy’ when I followed the script exactly.” This defensiveness, rooted in fear and misunderstanding, was addressed through open one-on-one sessions and improved scoring guidelines, transforming evaluations from threats to learning opportunities.
Overall, regular calibration sessions can play a key role in ensuring that evaluators are on the same page and that our standards remain consistent. Equally important are the feedback loops between agents and the quality team.
On top of this, you also need to prepare to balance speed and quality. However, creating an expectation that agents always meet high-speed targets while also delivering personalized care can be unrealistic. An effective quality control system should aim to identify that perfect equilibrium.
My final advice for companies struggling with quality control: Make it everyone’s job. Quality control isn’t just for support. Build a culture where quality is shared; invest in training that boosts empathy and communication; make it a team-wide effort. I find that when everyone’s involved, quality service becomes a natural outcome.
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