Stop Hoarding QA: How to Use Feedback to Fuel Support Team Growth

🦸 This newsletter is brought to you by Supportman.io

Is your QA program actually helping your team, or is it just creating more work?

This week on Live Chat, I’m joined by Amanda Drws, a CX analyst and data storytelling strategist who blends analytics, visualization, and organizational psychology to help teams turn QA into a real growth driver.

We talk about what happens when you stop trying to review every ticket and start focusing on the ones that matter most. Amanda shares how she audits less than 10% of conversations, uses QA to spot trends before dashboards do, and makes sure insights travel beyond support to marketing, product, and training.

She walks us through her step-by-step playbook, from designing weighted scorecards to broadcasting “brag box” moments company-wide — and explains why a leaner QA process can actually build more trust, not less.

To skip the summary below and go straight to the source:

And don't forget to check out Supportman.io, the sponsor of this podcast, which connects Intercom to Slack and utilizes AI to provide agents with real-time feedback and surface issues.

The Problem: 

Most QA programs fall into the same trap. They focus on reviewing as many tickets as humanly possible, hoping to catch every little mistake. On paper, it sounds thorough. In reality, it leaves reviewers buried in busywork, agents feeling like they’re under a microscope, and a long list of “issues” no one ever acts on. Instead of solving problems or sharing wins, teams get stuck pointing fingers.

The Solution: 

Amanda’s approach starts small but delivers big. Here’s her playbook:

1️⃣ Audit under 10% of tickets

Keep QA as a spotlight, not a bottleneck. Review fewer tickets so you can give thoughtful, high-value feedback.

2️⃣ Aim at what’s new

Focus reviews on recent product launches, fresh training rollouts, or new hires so you catch problems early.

3️⃣ Design weighted QA scorecards

Treat a typo differently from a billing error. Score by impact, not just occurrence, so your reviews reflect what matters most to customers.

4️⃣ Automate the basics

Let dashboards track routine metrics like first response time so human reviewers can spend their energy spotting trends and sharing insights.

5️⃣ Broadcast the gold

Share QA wins and discoveries with marketing, product, and training so they can act on them, too.

6️⃣ Recalibrate often

When patterns change, new error types, and shifting customer needs, adjust your QA process before small issues become big ones.

The Impact: 

With this approach, QA stops feeling like a trap and starts working like a team superpower. Agents open up instead of bracing for criticism. Leaders see exactly where to act. And customers get faster fixes and better experiences without even realizing QA had a hand in it.

Running a lean QA program is not about lowering the bar. It is about focusing on the conversations that matter, asking sharper questions, and making sure your insights do not get stuck in a silo.

In this episode, Amanda Drws showed us that successful QA is not measured by how many tickets you review. It is about building a system that catches issues early, celebrates what is working, and gives every team, not just support, the information they need to improve. When leaders take the time to design QA with purpose, it does not just protect quality, it strengthens trust inside the team and across the company.

The takeaway? You do not have to review more to have a bigger impact. You just need to review smarter.

Catch the full conversation on Live Chat with Jen Weaver!

Resources:

📬 Subscribe for weekly tactical tips → Get Weekly Tactical CX and Support Ops Tips

🔍 Follow Amanda Drws on LinkedIn for more insights → Amanda Drws on LinkedIn

🎙 Keep listening → More Episodes of Live Chat with Jen Weaver

🗣 Follow Jen for more CX conversations → Jen Weaver on LinkedIn

🤖 Sponsored by Supportman → https://supportman.io