A Day in the Life of QA

With over 500 employees here at Health-on-Line we have a wealth of various departments that, by name alone, you might not be clear on what they do exactly. From marketing to QA, sales and finance through to HR and IT, we cover a lot.

So, every month learn about a new department, with our Day in the Life series of blogs. Hear what they do from someone on the ground, what their job entails and a little about that person’s background that led them to work at Health-on-Line.

This month it’s Gavin from Quality Assurance (QA)…

Gavin, originally from a small town in North Wales, moved to Bournemouth in 2001 for a degree in Retail Management. Having completed his degree he decided to stay put and start his career as a manager for Tesco, Moto Service Areas and Greggs.

He also completed a placement year as a trainee manager in London whilst studying: “I was on a hotel reception desk in Kensington during my University Placement which was quite an experience, and got to meet quite a few celebrities too which is always quite exciting!”

Gavin started his journey at Health-on-Line six years ago in Customer Service, before moving to QA five years ago. “As a Quality Assurance assessor, we are there to make sure everything is being done correctly and to ultimately ensure our customers are being treated fairly and being looked after, by feeding back any errors that we find to be corrected with the customer and ensuring that remedial action is completed.”

Within his role he audits recorded phone calls, e-mails and correspondence that are relevant to that particular business area.

Gavin and the team also have regular consistency meetings where a sample of their work is checked to ensure a consistent approach with scoring, and that any potential errors are analysed in further detail; this ensures all reports are audited fairly, using the same scoring system.

>>Read about more departments here at Health-on-Line in our Day in the Life of blog series

This is where QA Quality Coaches like Sophie come in. Her role is to check QA assessors’ work to ensure consistency, but also to identify areas for improvement, as well as to support the QA team.

“I provide both 1-2-1 coaching sessions and group coaching sessions. These can be on anything from how to write a report, to how to provide feedback on a call that they have marked.

“I’m also a point of contact when any of our QA assessors have any questions on how to mark a certain scenario.

I also provide monthly reports to managers on what I have identified and any areas of concern or development.”

What does a normal day look like?

Starting at 8am, a normal day for Gavin consists of checking emails for any internal communications about performance targets, changes of process or important information that may be occurring within the business, before he begins listening to calls.

“There are various targets depending on what stream of the business I’m working on but I spend the majority of my time on Claims auditing.”

What do you like about the role and the team?

For Gavin it’s the atmosphere and the team that really make this role for him. “When I first joined the department in 2014 I was really surprised at how social and how fun it is, considering we spend our days with a headset on listening to phone calls.

“The main draw of the job will always be the people. Admittedly, when you are dealing with health insurance, some of the stories can be very difficult to hear but having such great colleagues on a team of thirty really does help.

“We always support each other really well and the atmosphere is always genuinely really friendly and warm.

“I absolutely love working in the QA department; it’s an important and constantly challenging job that is really rewarding, interesting and surprisingly fun too.”

If you like this sound of this role, then have a look at our current vacancies and join the Health-on-Line family.