For years, Quality Assurance (QA) in contact centres has lived in the shadow of compliance, often perceived as a “tick, box” exercise or worse, a “sales prevention unit.” But as customer expectations rise and technology advances, it’s becoming clear that QA needs to evolve from a retrospective scoring function into a forward, thinking enabler of customer outcomes, agent development, and continuous improvement.
This was the central theme of our most recent Contact Centre Network webinar, “QA – A Mindset Shift.” We brought together two respected voices in the space, Simon Poland (Director of Professional Services, EvaluAgent) and Pete Dunn (CX and QA transformation consultant), to explore what a modern QA function should look like in 2025 and beyond.
From Policing to Partnering
The session began with a frank reflection on how QA is often viewed as a blocker in the business, policing agent behaviour and penalising failure. This perception, both experts agreed, is damaging and outdated.
Instead, the panel advocated for repositioning QA as a strategic business partner, one that enables better sales conversations, improved service delivery, and more accurate regulatory compliance.
“We’ve got to stop doing QA to people and start doing it with them,” said Pete Dunn. “If QA is just pointing out failure without enabling improvement, it’s not quality, it’s control.”
Understanding the QA Maturity Curve
Simon Poland introduced the idea that many organisations are still at the lower end of the QA maturity curve, manually scoring a tiny percentage of calls using spreadsheets and broad, subjective criteria. While the tools now exist to analyse every customer interaction, most teams lack the processes, skill sets, and cultural mindset to truly act on that insight.
As Simon pointed out, over 50% of contact centres EvaluAgent works with are still using spreadsheets to manage QA. The challenge isn’t just adopting technology, it’s understanding what to do with the data once it’s available.
Scorecards Are Not the Enemy, But They Need Redefining
A major theme from the conversation was the need to redefine what QA scorecards measure. Rather than relying on generic criteria like “professional tone” or “followed script,” scorecards should evolve to ask more meaningful questions about customer outcomes, agent behaviour trends, and business impact.
“Your scorecard is just a list of questions,” Simon explained. “But what do you really want to ask of your conversations? If the questions aren’t aligned to what your business values, you’re collecting the wrong data.”
This led to a broader discussion about aligning QA more closely with CX, compliance, and commercial goals, and empowering QA teams to inform product, training, and process decisions, not just performance evaluations.
QA as a Coaching Function, Not a Correctional One
A key barrier to progress is the outdated notion of QA as a tool for monitoring failure. In reality, when QA teams are embedded in the operational feedback loop, they can become a coaching function that strengthens agent performance and customer experience at scale.
Pete stressed the importance of hiring differently:
“Start by hiring for curiosity. Bring in people who ask, ‘Why do we do it this way?’ If you don’t change the mindset, you won’t change the outcomes, no matter what tech you use.”
The consensus? QA assessors don’t all need to be coaches, but the function must become more collaborative, developmental, and insight, driven.
Intelligence Over Assurance
The panel also explored how AI and analytics are reshaping the landscape, enabling full conversation monitoring, surfacing patterns, and identifying where coaching can move the dial.
But both Simon and Pete warned against rushing into automation without rethinking underlying processes. Full call monitoring means little if it’s still framed as a tool for failure rather than a means of empowerment.
“What got you here won’t get you there,” Simon noted. “If your QA process is built for scoring 3 calls a month, it won’t work when you can monitor 100%. You need to rewire how you think about feedback, support, and growth.”
Takeaway: A New Identity for QA
So, where does QA go from here?
Ultimately, we need to rebrand QA as ‘Quality Intelligence’, a function that blends analytics, coaching, and strategic alignment to drive measurable impact across CX, compliance, and employee development.
It’s time to stop asking whether an agent passed or failed. The real question is: did we deliver the right outcome for the customer, and how can we do it better next time?
