How to measure + improve your Internal Quality Score (IQS)

You likely know your customer satisfaction (CSAT), Customer Effort Score (CES), and perhaps even your Net Promoter Score® (NPS). While many companies track these metrics, the Customer Service Quality Benchmark Report reveals that only a third of support teams track IQS—the key to enhancing customer service quality.

Here’s why relying solely on metrics like CSAT isn’t enough anymore, and why focusing on your IQS is crucial for delivering exceptional customer service.

In this guide:

• How to measure IQS
• Internal Quality Score (IQS) benchmark
• Why should you measure Internal Quality Score?
• How to improve your IQS
• Improve IQS with Zendesk QA

How to measure IQS

Internal Quality Score (IQS) is derived from quality assurance reviews, expressed as a percentage. Reviewers—including peers, managers, customer service QA specialists, or AI tools—evaluate customer service interactions (such as emails, chats, and phone recordings) and rate team performance using a QA scorecard.

To calculate the IQS for a single conversation, add all ratings and divide by the maximum score multiplied by the total number of categories. Repeat this process with a representative sample of your tickets to determine the overall IQS for your support team.

Internal Quality Score (IQS) benchmark

Now that you have your Internal Quality Score, you can compare it to industry standards. The latest Customer Service Quality Benchmark Report sets the 2023 IQS benchmark at 88 percent.

Additionally, 48 percent of teams use conversation reviews to track their IQS support scores over time. Are you among them?

Why should you measure Internal Quality Score?

Most companies monitor selected customer service metrics to gauge their performance. However, to truly assess your support quality, consider multiple aspects:

• Customer surveys: Metrics like CSAT, NPS, and CES reveal customer opinions about your product, support, and company.
• Internal quality checks: Evaluate agent interactions and calculate the Internal Quality Score (IQS).

Why use multiple metrics? External metrics like CSAT and CES show only customer satisfaction, not adherence to internal guidelines or solution accuracy. Conversely, internal analysis without customer feedback can be misleading. Balancing both ensures comprehensive insight and improvement. Remember, you can only improve what you measure.

How to improve your IQS

Successful customer service teams don’t just track IQS—they also aim to raise it. Consider the following:

1. Use AutoQA to review all customer interactions

It can be overwhelming to manually review and score IQS support interactions. According to the Customer Service Quality Benchmark Report, only 2 percent of support interactions are manually evaluated on average. This limited scope hampers a complete overview of support quality and informed decision-making for improvements.

As a solution, many support teams are adopting AI-powered quality assurance software. By integrating AI and enriching help desk data, you can easily calculate and monitor your IQS over time. This enables data-driven decisions to enhance customer service quality, support effectiveness, and redefine goals.

Zendesk QA automates scoring across categories and languages without additional resources. It addresses the limitations of manual reviews by:

• Monitoring large ticket volumes efficiently

• Ensuring comprehensive agent and category coverage

• Enhancing team efficiency and workload management

AutoQA provides a scalable solution with increased accuracy, identifying potential errors missed by human reviewers and improving your Internal Quality Score over time.

2. Pair IQS with customer satisfaction scores

Combining IQS with external quality scores like CSAT or CES provides a comprehensive view of what impacts customer satisfaction. Often, customer support reps are not solely responsible for low scores—factors like product quality, feature roadmap, or shipping policies can contribute to dissatisfaction.

If your IQS is high but your CSAT is low, it signals that improvements are needed in other business areas. This approach helps identify and address specific issues affecting customer satisfaction, leading to a more balanced and effective strategy.

3. Promote a culture of empathy in your organization

Empathy is crucial when hiring for customer service, as it fosters trust and leads to higher IQS and better survey ratings. To embed empathy into your company culture:

• Hire passionate helpers: Look for individuals who are passionate about helping others and who share your company’s mission and values.
• Include empathy training in onboarding: Train new agents on ways to communicate empathetically, including their voice, tone, language, and active listening skills.
• Evaluate empathy: Create a quality assurance scorecard category for empathy, giving it significant weight or marking it as critical, so a low rating impacts the overall conversation score.

4. Build a feedback loop

According to our Customer Service QA Benchmark Report, 44 percent of teams use conversation review feedback in one-on-one meetings and coaching sessions with support reps. By starting with quality assurance reviews and IQS, you can train and coach agents precisely and track progress over time.

Here’s how to create an effective feedback loop:

• Review a random sample of support interactions (or use Zendesk QA to score relevant conversations automatically).

• Evaluate conversations based on internal quality standards (including AutoQA scores, if applicable).

• Provide data-driven feedback during coaching sessions.

• Repeat the process regularly to ensure continuous improvement.

5. Continuously track customer service quality

Reviewing all customer interactions allows you to identify and address support quality issues, including agent burnout. Unhappy customers can affect agent satisfaction and business performance, so review those conversations and offer guidance and feedback.

Customers may not be aware of your quality standards, so it’s important not to rely solely on their judgment of your service quality. Analyze negative ratings from both your perspective and the customer’s to ensure proper handling according to your standards.

Balancing negative feedback with positive reinforcement is crucial. Acknowledge well-rated interactions to motivate agents and highlight valuable examples for team learning.

Or, let Zendesk QA do the job for you.

Improve IQS with Zendesk QA

Measuring IQS is essential for improving customer service quality. At Zendesk, our AI-powered quality assurance capabilities help you track IQS and enhance it over time. Our solution enables you to review 100 percent of agent interactions, automatically detect customer sentiment and churn risk, and monitor comprehensive performance trends, to name a few.

Learn more about how Zendesk QA can help your business.

Net Promoter, Net Promoter Score, and NPS are registered trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.