November 2003

By Bob Furniss, Call Center Ideas, Inc.
and Kathy Kuehne, etalk Corporation

With turnover rates as high as 30 to 50 percent in many contact centers across North America, companies are struggling to hire the right agent, design the appropriate mix of training and implement the most cutting-edge and effective technology in order to enhance the performance of their contact center organizations. The newest breed of workforce optimization (WFO) applications is helping meet those needs and allowing companies to track their success in exceeding customer expectations.

The latest buzz from Datamonitor, Gartner and Forrester Research indicates that workforce optimization is the next big solution in call centers across the globe. Is this just another buzzword to descend upon our industry or will workforce optimization really answer the long-standing debate of how to effectively manage your contact center? If you lose the hype and the buzz and get down to what workforce optimization means in the real world of call center agents and managers, it is this: the blending of process, management and people to produce real-time results across the customer service organization.

As agents, managers and supervisors, we constantly struggle with how to reduce cost and improve efficiencies ' and at the same time 'delight' the customer while we provide a consistent experience across all of the channels that we manage (phone, Web, chat and e-mail). As the call center becomes a multimedia contact center, the new breed of quality management systems have crossed over from just a monitoring tool to a complete optimizer of the call center.

According to Frost & Sullivan, the key benefit of workforce optimization applications is that 'they allow the contact center managers and corporate executives to measure performance at both a micro (agent) and macro (center) level and to analyze the meaning of these findings to plan accordingly.' Without this information, the manager will continue to struggle with disparate information across multiple systems and channels. If workforce optimization systems can provide the closed loop that is needed between efficiency and quality, along with employee and customer satisfaction, then managers will be able to 'control' their own destiny and 'see' the direction in which they need to go.

The Breakdown Of WFO
As we look to understand the systems and processes that fall into the workforce optimization category, there are three main areas to consider.

Customer experience optimization. Obviously, everything we do in the call center should be wrapped around the customer. Before we implement a system change or a new process, the first thing we need to know is how can this improve the overall customer experience? Can we see a tracked improvement in the way our agents service our customers?

Enterprise optimization. Whether we manage a mid-sized, single-site center or a virtual network of five nationwide centers of 800 agents each, we all struggle with the issues of how new systems will affect our overall organization. New systems must be able to interact with current technology. The systems must also come equipped with the ability to report information based on multiple vendors and data elements.

People optimization. If we take care of the customer and the technology, we have only solved half of the success equation. People are the driving force of the call center. While we want to find ways to make them more efficient and effective, the focus also has to be on how to empower them to make better choices and improve themselves. A true 'workforce optimizer' will give the agents the ability to measure themselves against company expectations and give them tools for improving on their own ' with limited feedback from their manager.

Focusing on these three categories sounds easier said then done. Over the past several years, many of us have struggled through the implementation of new CRM tools that were designed to improve our bottom line and customer service. The customer relationship desktop applications are designed to provide the agent with relevant customer information to allow them to customize the service and sales approach based on specific segments of the market. However, we have often found that it did not meet our call center user expectations or the financial improvements that were expected by the company. So what does the future hold? How can workforce optimization become a key focus in the future?

Customer Experience Optimization
As a normal course of business, our job in the call center is often reactive in nature. No matter how much we want to be proactive, we find ourselves responding to the latest direction of the company in the areas of sales and marketing. The call center is expected to be the voice of the customer since it is the key channel for customer interactions. We struggle to define and report customer expectations. With the advent of true WFO we have some of the most powerful tools available to put actual recorded customer interaction in front of the organization.

We achieve customer experience optimization by using information to drive our decisions. Just saying that we are focusing on the customer is not enough. With the right tools, we can track the 'real-time' issues of the customer. Using the systems to report on customer trends, we can set a course for short-term and long-term by focusing on how our current processes need to change, and how those changes are affecting the customer experience in real-time.

Enterprise Optimization
Whether we are looking to optimize a medium sized center or a multisite enterprise, we all have the need to be able to report information in a consistent manner. Today's top WFO vendors have taken this fact and made it an integral part of their platforms. Whereas 10 years ago we struggled to find the data that we needed, now we often find ourselves drowning in the amount of data that is produced in the call center. Relevant customer and operational information is created throughout the call center in the ACD, quality management, workforce management, IVR, e-mail and more.

In order to optimize the enterprise, we need the ability to integrate the key reporting systems together so they can share information ' across systems and even across multiple center locations.

We now measure our success in terms of seconds and pennies per call. Being able to track and report on calling trends and patterns ' across the enterprise ' is a key factor in controlling expenses. At the same time, we need the data to be consistent. Whether we are looking at the sales center in Topeka or the customer service center in Ottawa, the data must be consistent and the systems must have the ability to compare data across centers, systems, teams and agents.

With this enhanced information, we can compare one agent, group or center to another, using the same key customer and productivity data. As we understand how our decisions are affecting the individual work that is performed, we can make informed decisions that will optimize the entire enterprise.

Today's workforce systems have reached a new level of reporting access. The new platforms have integrated the key optimization systems in the center, including quality management, workforce management, e-learning, ACD, IVR, Web and more. With this new platform, the quality suite has been taken to a new level, providing the key place to analyze customer and employee trends. With this information, the call center manager is able to see real-time issues across all the advanced systems that now populate the call center.

People Optimization
All our efforts to improve the technology to impact the customer experience will have limited success if the key component of the system does not focus on the fundamental improvement of the two to five minute interaction between the agent and the customer. We need this information for two reasons: to reward the agent that is meeting and exceeding the customer's expectations, and to identify which agents need to improve. Although the second reason is the one that usually gets the focus, the first one is probably even more important. If we reward the positive, we will usually see a change in the negative.

People optimization is really made up of two key areas: management efficiencies and agent behavior.

Management Efficiency
With the improvement in the information provided by the workforce optimization systems, executives can make better decisions for the company and the call center. If we understand more about the present, we can make better decisions for the future.

At the same time, the implementation of the new capabilities offered by today's workforce optimization systems can have a major impact on the front-line management in four areas:

Time management. Effective workforce optimization systems now have the ability to interact with the supervisor through the key time management systems used today ' e-mail and calendar. The system can now interact with Outlook, and once defined, can literally manage the success of the supervisor. The systems will send updates and even track recorded monitoring files within the supervisor's e-mail desktop. The systems can be programmed to send e-mail reminders, team trends and even reports showing when work schedules are falling behind expectations. While five years ago, the supervisor had to manage the calendars of 10 to 15 agents, the workforce optimization systems can now manage the calendar of the supervisor.

Calibration across enterprise. One of the best tools for defining quality in the call center is created by conducting management calibration sessions. Finding time for these sessions is hard. Scheduling sessions across multiple groups and even call center sites is almost impossible. The new WFO systems now allow us to automate much of this process. We can choose a specific call for calibration, send the call to the entire management staff via e-mail along with an automated form with scoring guidelines that allows the management team to rate the call. The supervisors can listen to the call, rate the individual attributes of the call and effectively calibrate the definitions of quality across the enterprise directly from their desktop and phone.

Coaching. The new WFO systems are making this process even more automated than in the past. The systems have perfected the 'voice mail' ease of notating sessions, attaching messages to e-mails and creating processes that make it easy to provide information to the agent ' in a format that will help improve agent behavior and the overall customer experience.

Agent Efficiency
In the end, all of the advances and improvements are of little value if the systems do not allow the call center to effectively improve the level of customer service provided. The key component has to be the ability to effectively change the behavior of the agent while maintaining a high morale level in the call center.

Change behavior. With the newly automated processes, the agent can now take an active role in improving his or her level of service. The agent can actually take the responsibility to actively seek feedback through the system and even self-assess performance. In addition, the improved tracking capabilities will allow the front-line supervisor to track the change in behavior and quality and compare it to other agents, other groups and even other call centers within the enterprise.

Improve morale. One of the fundamental risks of monitoring is the feeling among the agents that there is a 'big brother' watching every move. The new WFO systems allow the call center manager to ensure that everyone receives the same level of focus. Monitoring is random throughout the day and even the time period for capturing a call. In addition, the agents are able to seek their own feedback by logging on to the system and listening to their own calls. With this option, the supervisor can take a more supportive role of verifying improvement, while allowing the agent to seek his or her own improvement path.

Adjust call center processes. Even agents with the best customer service skills can fail because of poor business processes or system applications. New WHO applications provide tools to view and analyze an agent's desktop processes. With this information, the management team can discover processes that hinder an agent's success or productivity.

Workforce optimization is really about changing the overall performance of the call center. Now that the vendors have made the time-consuming process much more 'user-friendly,' the future could not look brighter for improving our ability to develop an optimized, effective workforce while setting a new level of customer experience.

Bob Furniss is president of Call Center Ideas, Inc. (www.callcenterideas.com), which provides consulting, writing and speaking services to Fortune 500 companies and global call centers focusing on improving customer retention and reducing agent turnover. Kathy Kuehne is director of product management for etalk Corporation (www.etalk.com), a provider of Performance Impact solutions for enterprise contact centers.

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