Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Contact Center Workforce Management Goes Mobile
No matter what line of work a business is in, managing workforce scheduling needs to be a priority in order to keep productivity, profits and customer satisfaction high. Nowhere is this truer than in the contact center environment. And while schedule management is a high priority for contact centers 365 days a year, summer vacation season, which is fast approaching, can make scheduling even more of an issue than usual.
Contact center managers who want to make schedules more flexible, better address fluctuating call volumes and also give agents more flexibility, may want to investigate web-based communication tools. Today, more call centers are implementing web-based communication tools to collaborate between agents and supervisors in almost real-time. With new wireless, high-bandwidth devices, these web-based tools can be literally available from anywhere.
With a high-bandwidth mobile device, contact center workforce management can take place anywhere. The beauty of this is that it is hard to find anyone who doesn’t have a mobile device, so using one is usually second nature. And if the device is to be supplied by the company for the purpose of contact center workforce management, it is a nominal expense that requires a very short training period.
There are a number of essential workforce management tasks that can be accomplished with web-based tools and a mobile device. According to Monet Software,a provider of cloud-based call center workforce management software contact center management can receive alerts on their mobile devices based on thresholds, service levels, adherence and so on. Management can also monitor adherence from anywhere and have the ability to act immediately.
There are always reasons, unfortunately, why schedules need to be adjusted, and much to the chagrin of the scheduler, this often happens at the last minute. With a wireless, high-bandwidth device, schedule changes can be monitored on the spot and staff can be adjusted as needed. The same holds true for managing exception handling between agents and supervisors, especially across multiple locations. Shift bidding and agent assignments can even be handled with a mobile device.
Now that contact center solutions are often offered in the cloud, using those applications on a mobile device through a web browser has become much easier. When it comes to contact center workforce management, scheduling no longer needs to be the stressor it was in the past.
In related news, TMCnet reported,“It can be a complicated dance to determine the best scheduling arrangement to deliver the most value for the call center.”
Linda Dobel is a TMCnet Contributor. She has been an editor in the contact center space for more than 25 years, and has the distinction of being the founding editor of Customer Inter@ction Solutions (CIS) magazine. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Chris DiMarco