Contact centres invest a huge amount of time, effort, and money into QA. Yet many leaders still say the same thing:

“We track quality, but we’re not seeing real improvement.”

QA is supposed to help you reduce risk, lift performance, and ensure compliance. But for many centres, it becomes a reporting loop - score the call, log the result, flag the issue, repeat. What’s missing is the follow-through. And without it, QA becomes just another thing to manage, rather than a meaningful driver of better outcomes.

In our work with regulated contact centres, we consistently see six common QA barriers - all fixable. Here’s what they are, and how YakTrak + GRIST help leaders turn QA from a compliance task into a capability-building engine.

Detection of conduct risk breaches is faster than ever, but turning insights into lasting behaviour change remains a challenge. As 100% monitoring becomes standard, the pressure to act is rising. Learn how organisations can close the gap between detection and remediation, with actionable strategies that turn insights into habits, and habits into measurable change. Discover the smarter pathway to closing the loop on conduct risk.

Contact centres are entering a new QA era.

With AI, CCaaS integrations, and growing regulatory expectations, quality assurance is no longer just about sample checks and compliance scores. 100% QA is on the horizon - and with it, an entirely different kind of pressure:

It’s no longer enough to find the problem. You need to prove you’ve addressed it.

How do you know if you trust your leader?

More importantly—how would you prove it?

It’s a tough question. Because trust isn’t built in a single conversation or a charismatic moment. It’s built through the small, consistent actions we see every day—how someone shows up, how they follow through, and how clearly they set direction.

Last week in Melbourne, the Auscontact National Conference brought together a passionate, curious and committed community of people who care deeply about customer and team experience.

There were many standout moments, but what impressed us most was the spirit behind it all — the willingness to learn, challenge, share, and grow.

AI is reshaping contact centre QA. Whether it’s monitoring for compliance or evaluating customer experience, the volume and speed of insight is increasing fast. Disclaimers can be tracked automatically. Tone can be flagged in real time. Whole interactions can be scored in seconds, not hours.

But if you’ve started using AI for QA and your customer experience metrics still aren’t improving, you’re not alone.

In the contact centre industry, there’s a common belief that more coaching automatically leads to better performance. However, our experience at YakTrak has shown that it’s not just about coaching frequency, but about integrating QA, compliance, and development efforts to drive holistic performance improvements.

Many contact centres still focus on individual coaching or QA programs, rather than embedding these efforts into a broader ecosystem for continuous learning and people development. As Seb Cox, Head of Customer Experience at YakTrak, noted: "Without visibility into development quality and its impact on performance, leaders risk focusing on isolated interventions rather than driving meaningful improvements."

For decades, contact centres have relied on QA and coaching to improve performance. But despite heavy investment in these areas, many centres still struggle with bridging the gap between the two.

GRIST's experience shows that treating QA and coaching as separate functions means frontline teams often receive performance scores without structured development.

As Peter Grist noted, "Coaching needs to be the bridge between QA and real performance improvement." This highlights how QA has traditionally been treated as a compliance function rather than a development enabler.

YakTrak + GRIST are changing that.

Have you ever walked out of a coaching session wondering if it actually made a difference? Many contact centre leaders think they’re coaching, but what if they’re just giving feedback?

Coaching is one of the most powerful tools a contact centre leader has to improve performance, yet in many organisations, it’s inconsistent, ineffective, or treated as an afterthought.

The problem? Many leaders think they are coaching when they’re actually just giving feedback or managing day-to-day performance. Without structured, high-quality coaching, frontline teams struggle to develop the skills they need to handle increasingly complex customer interactions.

YakTrak + GRIST are fixing this.

What’s on your dashboard today? FCR? CSAT? AHT? For many contact centre leaders, these metrics are more than numbers—they’re the pulse of your operations, shaping every decision, every huddle, and every strategy session. The relentless pressure to keep these metrics in the green often leaves teams in a constant state of reaction. But ask yourself: are your teams truly in control, or are they stuck in a cycle of firefighting?

Quality Assurance (QA) is supposed to drive better customer experiences, help leaders coach effectively, and identify risks. But in many organisations, QA is outdated, inconsistent, and too often disconnected from meaningful performance improvement.

The problem? Most QA processes rely on small sample sizes, subjective evaluations, and compliance-driven checklists rather than focusing on agent capability and behavioural development.

YakTrak + GRIST are fixing this.

A strong operating rhythm (OR) is the heartbeat of leadership—a structured cadence of huddles, coaching, feedback, and reviews that keeps teams aligned and engaged. Without it, contact centres fall into reactive cycles of high turnover and inconsistent performance. An effective OR brings clarity, consistency, and focus, driving real results. As YakTrak’s Caitlin Ziegler says, “With disciplined focus, an OR becomes the backbone of a high-performing contact centre.” What rhythms are shaping your team today?

Contact centres have long been measured by efficiency—how quickly agents resolve calls, how accurately they follow scripts, and how well they adhere to workflows. But the future of contact centres isn’t about managing tasks; it’s about developing capability through structured leadership and behavioural change. As customer interactions become more complex, leaders must enable their teams to handle high-value conversations by embedding learning into daily operations and reinforcing the right behaviours.

GRIST + YakTrak are enabling this shift.