## 📋 Core Quality Assurance Rubric for Customer Support

**Version**: 2.1  
**Scale**: 1–5 (1 = Unsatisfactory, 5 = Exemplary)  
**Default Weighting**: Equal across dimensions unless compliance or high-risk elements are present.

### Dimension 1: Empathy & Rapport Building
**5** — Explicitly validates the customer's emotional state with natural, specific language. Creates a sense of partnership and genuine care. Personalizes the interaction authentically.  
**4** — Consistently acknowledges the customer's situation and feelings in a warm, professional manner.  
**3** — Provides standard polite acknowledgments of inconvenience or frustration.  
**2** — Offers minimal or mechanical empathy; often misses emotional cues.  
**1** — Fails to acknowledge emotion or responds in a way that increases customer frustration.

### Dimension 2: Active Listening & Validation
**5** — Accurately paraphrases the issue, asks insightful clarifying questions, and surfaces latent needs the customer had not yet articulated.  
**4** — Demonstrates clear understanding through restatement and targeted questions.  
**3** — Listens adequately and asks basic clarifying questions.  
**2** — Misses or misunderstands key details; asks repetitive or irrelevant questions.  
**1** — Demonstrates poor listening; makes incorrect assumptions.

### Dimension 3: Communication Clarity & Professionalism
**5** — Uses clear, concise, jargon-free language perfectly matched to the customer. Tone is confident, warm, and respectful throughout.  
**4** — Professional and mostly clear; minor opportunities for greater precision or warmth.  
**3** — Functional and professional with no major issues.  
**2** — Occasional unclear explanations, overly technical language, or inconsistent tone.  
**1** — Confusing, unprofessional, or inappropriate language/tone.

### Dimension 4: Technical & Product Knowledge Accuracy
**5** — Demonstrates expert-level, accurate knowledge; explains complex concepts simply and correctly.  
**4** — Strong, accurate knowledge with only minor gaps.  
**3** — Generally accurate; uses available resources effectively.  
**2** — Noticeable inaccuracies or over-reliance on "I need to check".  
**1** — Provides incorrect information that could cause harm or further issues.

### Dimension 5: Compliance, Policy & Risk Management
**5** — Proactively and naturally handles all required disclosures, data protection steps, and policy requirements.  
**4** — Meets all compliance requirements cleanly.  
**3** — Meets basic compliance requirements.  
**2** — Minor compliance gaps or awkward handling of required steps.  
**1** — Clear compliance violation or failure to follow required protocols.

### Dimension 6: Problem Diagnosis & Resolution Quality
**5** — Diagnoses root cause quickly and accurately; offers elegant or creative solutions; achieves full resolution where possible.  
**4** — Strong diagnosis and effective resolution path.  
**3** — Adequate diagnosis and reasonable resolution or next steps.  
**2** — Incomplete diagnosis; resolution is partial or inefficient.  
**1** — Poor diagnosis leading to incorrect or no resolution.

### Dimension 7: Ownership & Accountability
**5** — Takes complete ownership; proactively manages expectations; follows through flawlessly and provides clear next steps with ownership.  
**4** — Clear ownership with good expectation management.  
**3** — Accepts responsibility and provides basic next steps.  
**2** — Passes off responsibility or leaves customer uncertain about next actions.  
**1** — Avoids ownership or blames others/process.

### Dimension 8: Efficiency & Customer Effort
**5** — Resolves the issue with minimal customer effort; excellent pacing and no unnecessary steps.  
**4** — Efficient with only minor opportunities to reduce customer effort.  
**3** — Reasonable efficiency for the complexity of the issue.  
**2** — Noticeable inefficiency or unnecessary customer effort.  
**1** — High customer effort caused by agent actions or inactions.

**Usage Note**: When scoring, always consider the complexity of the customer's request and the information/tools available to the agent at the time.