Resolving Common Voice Quality Issues in Contact Centers for Better CX

Why Voice Quality is Critical in Contact Centers

In a contact center, every call counts. Even minor audio glitches, like muffled voices or lag, can turn an easy customer interaction into a frustrating one. Poor voice quality not only hurts First Call Resolution (FCR) rates but also drives up customer effort and damages CSAT scores.

While it’s tempting to blame the telecom provider, the truth is more than 60% of call quality issues start inside the contact center itself, through internal routing, IVR systems, or equipment failures . That means operations teams have more control than they think. Let’s break down the five most common problems, why they happen, and how to resolve them.

The Hidden Impact of Voice Quality on CX and KPIs

When customers can’t hear clearly, they’re less likely to resolve issues in one call, leading to repeat calls and longer handle times. Agents get frustrated, too, as they repeat themselves or manage angry customers. The ripple effect? Lower FCR, missed SLAs, and declining CSAT. In industries like healthcare or finance, a single failed call could even impact compliance.

Investing in clear voice paths isn’t just a technical concern, it’s a business imperative.

5 Common Call Center Voice Quality Issues

1. Voice Distortion

Symptoms:

Garbled or “robotic” voices where words cut out, making conversations hard to follow. Customers often say, “you’re breaking up.”

Why It Happens:

Voice distortion is usually caused by packet loss or jitter in VoIP networks. Low bandwidth, codec mismatches, or even outdated headsets can also degrade audio .

How to Fix or Prevent It:

• Allocate enough bandwidth for concurrent calls (at least 100 kbps per call).
• Enable QoS (Quality of Service) to prioritize voice packets.
• Upgrade to wideband codecs and replace faulty headsets.
• Use proactive monitoring to detect packet loss early.

2. Echo on Calls

Symptoms:

Hearing your own voice or the other party’s speech repeat with a delay.

Why It Happens:

Echo often results from acoustic feedback (e.g., speakerphones), poor echo cancellation settings, or high network latency .

How to Fix or Prevent It:

• Use quality headsets instead of speakerphones.
• Enable and configure echo cancellation on VoIP devices.
• Adjust mic sensitivity to prevent sound leakage.
• Reduce network latency through optimized routing.

3. Latency (Audio Delay)

Symptoms:

Awkward pauses and overlapping conversations where responses arrive late, leading to “Are you still there?” moments.

Why It Happens:

Latency occurs when voice packets take too long to travel due to network congestion, long routing paths, or insufficient bandwidth .

How to Fix or Prevent It:

• Optimize network routes and enable QoS.
• Limit non-voice traffic during peak hours.
• Use ISPs with low latency and consider SD-WAN for global calls.
• Monitor latency continuously and set alert thresholds (<150 ms).

4. Jitter (Choppy Audio)

Symptoms:

Voices sound like they’re cutting in and out, with words missing or jumbled.

Why It Happens:

Jitter occurs when packets arrive at uneven intervals, often due to network instability or congestion. High jitter can also lead to packet loss .

How to Fix or Prevent It:

• Reduce network congestion and isolate voice traffic with VLANs.
• Use jitter buffers on VoIP devices to smooth packet timing.
• Continuously measure jitter and address spikes proactively.

5. Background Noise

Symptoms:

Distracting ambient sounds, keyboard clicks, office chatter, or static ,make it hard for customers to focus on the conversation.

Why It Happens:

Poor noise isolation in headsets, unoptimized agent environments, and hardware interference all contribute to background noise.

How to Fix or Prevent It:

• Equip agents with noise-cancelling headsets.
• Minimize environmental noise in workspaces.
• Check for faulty cables or devices that add interference.

Why Monitoring Matters (and Why Most Issues Are Internal)

Most contact centers still rely on customers to flag call problems. By then, the damage is done. Studies show the majority of call center voice quality issues stem from within the contact center environment,IVR paths, transfers, or endpoint configurations,not just the carrier .

Continuous monitoring provides visibility into the entire call path, helping you pinpoint root causes quickly and avoid the carrier-vs-IT blame cycle.

How Proactive Testing Protects Your CX

Proactive voice quality testing, like simulating real customer calls across geographies, lets you catch and fix issues before they affect live interactions. Klearcom’s Voice Quality Monitoring runs automated tests around the clock, measuring metrics like packet loss, jitter, latency, and MOS scores. When issues arise, real-time alerts and root cause analysis allow teams to respond fast, protecting both CX and SLAs.

Conclusion

Clear calls mean happy customers and efficient agents. By addressing common voice quality issues, distortion, echo, latency, jitter, and noise, and adopting proactive monitoring, contact centers can stay ahead of disruptions, improve FCR, and hit their SLA targets with confidence.