Top customer service quality assurance interview questions

Whether your team is looking to hire a customer service QA specialist or you are considering a career change yourself, here you will find the most relevant quality assurance interview questions.

In customer service, quality is currency. Hiring a specialist is an important step for businesses who know that quality assurance will help them meet customer expectations. Specializing in this niche is a smart career move for support professionals who like digging into the why of processes and customer service performance.

In this guide:

• What are the interview questions for customer service quality assurance?
• Top customer service quality assurance specialist interview questions
• Quality assurance interview questions answered

What are the interview questions for customer service quality assurance?

When interviewing candidates or applying for a QA Specialist position, it’s important to assess knowledge, skills, and experience related to the role. That’s what quality assurance interview questions are for.

The exact questions will depend on the position and the type of the business. For example, some businesses combine this role with coaching, with responsibilities that include designing and carrying out training programs. Business Process Outsourcers (BPOs) may be looking for a person that can assess outsourced quality assurance for their customers, or the customers themselves may wish to have an in-house quality specialist to analyze BPO agent performance.

Regardless, let’s look at the most common customer service quality assurance interview questions—and how to answer them.

Top customer service quality assurance specialist interview questions

• Why are you applying for this role?
• How do you define customer support quality?
• How do you measure quality?
• How do you improve customer satisfaction?
• Which tools do you have experience with?
• What is the greatest challenge you’ve faced in quality assurance?

Read on to find out how to answer these questions.

Why are you applying for this role?

This is, of course, a general question you can expect in most interviews. It can also come under the guise of ‘what makes you suitable for this role?’, ‘why do you want to be a customer service QA specialist?’, etc.

However, answers cannot be general.

For this role, the best candidate demonstrates a solid understanding of the job description and the company’s current performance.

The best answer to this question will discuss the importance of customer service quality: making customers happy will increase their loyalty and reduce churn. It is also about making sure all agents are engaged and performing to their top potential.

Companies that have a good customer service reputation want quality assurance to help them maintain it. Other companies know they need quality assurance to bring their support team to a higher standard.

Candidates should always include existing experience. Many or those who have a support background will have an understanding of best QA practices. Specific examples of going the extra mile, understanding the importance of company voice, or even a strong awareness of the importance of process adherence are all relevant.

How do you define customer service quality?

Customer service quality is defined by:

• Ease of use for the customer

• Quick response time to customer inquiries

• Correct and consistent style and tone of voice
• Being customer-centric

• Offering excellent customer service

From a business point of view, the quality of a customer interaction can also depend on how well the customer service agent drove product engagement and growth.

Any strong candidate can offer an example of exceptional customer service. Whether it is a customer experience they enjoyed or one they provided.

How do you measure customer service quality?

As a quality specialist, it’s your responsibility to track support team performance and align processes with goals. There are two ways to do this: internal reviews and tracking metrics.

Internal conversation reviews (or QA reviews) are a vital part of the customer service quality assurance program. It is the only way to measure agent performance against internal company standards and goals.

Measuring customer service quality reviews help you pinpoint weaknesses or strengths in processes and give team members direct, actionable feedback. Companies rate conversations on categories that align with their priorities, popular ones include Product Knowledge, Grammar & Tone, Empathy, and Personalization. Through this process teams calculate their Internal Quality Score (IQS).

If the QA process is entirely manual it is prone to error and impossible to scale. Using customer service quality management software like Zendesk QA helps you automate quality reviews and lean on AI for smarter insights on how to make customers happy.

Running customer surveys and tracking “external” quality metrics is also a vital role for QA specialists. Companies will expect you to mention Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), First Response Time (FRT), and Net Promoter Score (NPS).

The exact metrics tracked varies per team, depending on operations, priorities, and even support channels offered.

How do you improve customer satisfaction?

Although it may seem like a customer service QA specialist has a huge cluster of responsibilities, their ultimate goal is to help their team improve customer satisfaction.

Excellent customer experience relies on:

• Making sure processes are effective and understood;

• Providing teams with the feedback they need to improve;

• Tracking metrics to identify weak points;

• Managing customer feedback;

• Helping to construct and bolster onboarding and coaching programs.

Tip: A standout answer will include why support teams are not just a cost center for customers to solve their problems. Customer satisfaction should be embedded deep into company values, fuelling product development and sales/marketing strategies.

Which tools do you have experience with?

Although the landscape of customer service tools is wide-ranging, direct experience isn’t always a must if a candidate displays awareness of the variety on offer.

Mentioning the effect of AI is vital here, given its ubiquity in customer service tools, from ticket triage to chatbot capabilities. The best candidates will be able to also describe the benefits of:

• Customer sentiment analysis,
• Automated quality assurance,

• Automating review assignments and/or conversation selection.

What is the greatest challenge you’ve faced in quality assurance?

The biggest challenges customer service quality teams face include:

1. Scaling QA operations

When companies first start out with quality assurance, the process often lives in spreadsheets. However, this eventually causes maintenance commotion—the process owner leaves the company, the review volume becomes too large to handle, data cannot be effectively extracted, etc.

Many support professionals know how cumbersome the admin of support QA becomes without access to the right tools.

If that sounds familiar, this is the perfect opportunity to open up a discussion on the benefits of a smarter, more scalable way to improve customer service quality with the right software. It saves time and offers a much more sophisticated outlook with data tracking, automation, and AI at your disposal.

2. Aligning reviewers and categories

While some QA specialists conduct every review independently, many will work alongside other reviewers—others in the quality team, team leads, customer agents who conduct peer reviews, etc.

The larger the team, the more important it is to ensure that feedback remains consistent.
When there are multiple reviewers, you run the risk of bias and multiple opinions. A successful outcome requires cohesion.

Conducting regular calibration sessions is the responsibility of a customer service quality assurance specialist. Aligning reviewers across company guidelines and priorities will promote the value of constructive feedback and ultimately help all agents work towards the same goal for consistent customer service.

3. Everything was done right but the customer still left a bad review

This happens when the customer’s expectations are misaligned with company protocols. For example, a customer may expect a refund where the agent is not at liberty to grant one, so they mark the interaction as unsatisfactory. The same conversation may be reviewed to reveal that the agent acted with diligence at each stage.

This opens a discussion about the importance of quality assurance. It helps to separate customer opinion with internal standards, and can even indicate where issues should be communicated to the wider team, e.g. Product Issues, or advising Sales and Success on managing expectations.

Quality assurance interview questions answered

Whether you’re looking to hire a customer service quality assurance specialist or considering the role yourself, understanding these key interview questions is essential. They not only help identify the right fit for the job but also highlight the critical skills and experiences needed to succeed in the field.

Quality assurance in customer service is about more than just monitoring performance—it’s about ensuring every interaction meets the highest standards and contributes to a positive customer experience. With the right specialist on your team, you can elevate your customer service and drive long-term success.