Call Center Management Featured Article
Forecasting to Optimize Call Center Management
Forecasting is one of the most challenging principles in effective call center management. While it’s often easy to account for lulls and peaks throughout the day, determining how many agents you’ll need on any given day is another task entirely. Monet software is a leading workforce management provider and the challenge of effective forecasting is one that it’s dealt with many times before.
Monet asserts that workforce management software is the most essential piece in a forecasting strategy. The ability to see historical data about workloads throughout the year can make sure that call center management is fully aware of any upcoming demand spikes. Workforce management software like Monet’s has the ability to collect information about daily call volume that can quickly be used as a sign post for seasonal and holiday call crests and falls.
According to TMC’s (News - Alert) Susan Campbell, “You can also rely on workforce management solutions to create regular intra-day forecast updates throughout the day. You can then calculate a new forecast based on what has already occurred. In this process, you can establish the trends that will help you in future decisions. Then, forecast and schedule based on response time and urgency of various channels, including chat, e-mails and calls.”
While knowing what you’re up against will help, forecasting can be broken down into a few different pieces to ensure that staff levels are as close to optimal as possible in the event of an unexpected call spike. Skill sets are important to take into consideration, as more experienced agents will be able to accommodate more roles within your call center. Tracking agent adherence to make sure that all of your agents are available when a schedule dictates their need is also critical to this process.
It is important to leverage workforce management solutions to ensure the contact center can meet call demand without under-staffing or over-staffing the center. To accomplish this, contact centers need methods to precisely predict the number of agents needed to handle the center’s contact volume. Workforce managements can provide call centers with the intelligence to support their forecasting needs, and a smart scheduling strategy can ensure you’ll be covered for every possible scenario.
Chris DiMarco is a Web Editor for TMCnet. He holds a master's degree in journalism from Quinnipiac University. Prior to joining TMC Chris worked with e-commerce provider Suresource as a contact center representative and development analyst. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Janice McDuffee