Call Center Management Featured Article
Some Elements of Business Never Change. Workforce Optimization Shouldn't Be One of Them
There are certain business processes that will never change no matter how much technology does. When a salesperson takes his best customer out to dinner, he’s emulating a practice that Roman olive oil salesmen might have engaged in 2,000 years ago. While certain human-based practices may never change, the technologies that underpin business processes do need to change. In the contact center, practices such as workforce optimization haven’t been updated in decades, and companies that refuse to move with the times are missing out on opportunities to improve the business.
It has been estimated that about 20 percent of contact centers are still using spreadsheets for workforce management. A far larger percentage may be using workforce management solutions, but they’re old and outdated and may as well be Erlang-C calculations on paper. In recent years, workforce optimization has been brought forward to the twenty-first century largely because of data, according to a recent article by Monet Software (News - Alert) CEO Chuck Ciarlo.
“You may already be collecting data on customers, but is there a way to make that available to agents so they can customize their handing of a specific call – or route it to the agent best suited to handle it?” asked Ciarlo. “Real time information is no longer a luxury – it is a necessity if agents are going to effectively meet a customer’s needs.”
Cloud-based technology today offers better ways to achieve customer satisfaction goals, even in the smallest of contact centers. If customers are waiting to speak to an agent – three minutes is the maximum amount of time most customers today will wait – your chances of turning that relationship around into customer loyalty grow dim. Likewise, if the call is transferred from person to person, the customer will draw the conclusion that no one at your organization knows what he’s doing. For this reason, it’s important to implement smart call routing technology that will cut out the unknown factors for agents.
“Customers prefer only talking to one person at your contact center, rather than being put on hold or transferred to a supervisor and explaining their issue a second time,” wrote Ciarlo. “More and more, managers are trusting agents to make decisions that might otherwise have required executive approval. However, agents need access to the right data at the service level to make an informed decision.”
It’s also important to ensure that knowledge workers – who could be located on the road or anywhere in the world – can still be connected to the broader customer support environment. Thanks to today’s cloud-based contact center solutions, the work (and the customers) can follow them anywhere they happen to be.
“Your team should be able to stay connected to the contact center wherever they are. Find a browser-based software solution that makes working from home as easy as working in the office,” wrote Ciarlo.
If you’re looking for a boost to customer satisfaction, sales or other metrics, take a good hard look at the technology you’re using as tools for customer support workers. If they’re old, outdated or simply not robust enough to support the customer service function, your organization is missing out on opportunities that could help take it to the next level.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi