Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Flexible Schedule Adherence Tracking Meets Unique Needs of Your Call Center
The most expensive aspect of managing a call center is staffing - ensuring that agents are working efficiently within set schedules is essential to the success of a business. Avoiding reoccurring call center schedule adherence issues and overhead shrinkage is all a matter of scheduling that fits the needs of agents.
Call center schedule adherence is a metric used in the call center to determine whether or not agents are working the amount of time they’re scheduled to work. It is measured by taking the total time a call center agent is available and dividing it by the time they are scheduled to work. Schedule adherence can take into account time spent on breaks, while most call centers define a target schedule adherence percentage allowing for cushion time beyond scheduled breaks.
Any manager within any customer-facing industry faces a challenge when trying to schedule employees based on the needs of the business. They also must pay attention to forecasting for call volume and the productivity of their staff as when an agent is doing anything other than the tasks related to the job, adherence issues arise. Failing to adhere to call center scheduling can be the result of a number of different elements.
For instance, the agent may not be familiar with the impact adherence on performance. It’s critical that call center managers spend the time talking with agents so they understand that just 10 minutes out of adherence can have a significant impact on service levels.
Also, the agent may not have an understanding of the difference between phone and non-phone activities . So, managers must educate agents on the activities required in their position, explaining what should be included in the overall schedule.
Additionally, too much flexibility in call center scheduling can also be a problem. In both flexible and rigid situations, members of the team should communicate to identify areas for improvement. Tools can ease this process through shift bidding and workforce management access.
Call center scheduling is more likely to create out of adherence problems if it doesn’t get measured or tracked. Agents are typically only going to pay attention to metrics that are monitored and relate to compensation, so it is essential to set goals, communicate effectively with the team, measure adherence and provide feedback.
Easier and more accurate monitoring across all agent activities and automated comparison with scheduled activities has an impact on the bottom line through improved services levels, better cost management und increased productivity. Monet Software, a global provider of workforce optimization solutions for small and medium-sized contact centers, has a flexible real-time schedule adherence that extends monitoring to all agent activities that impact call center performance.
Specifically, Monet Advanced Agent Adherence allows the creation of custom rules to match the needs of the call center, including adding any agent activity type into adherence monitoring, setting up custom thresholds to exactly match the center’s needs, and monitoring all agent activities in real-time with custom alerts.
Since every call center has certain agent activity types, Monet’s approach to agent adherence monitoring gives centers a high level of accuracy in managing call center performance and the potential to reduce non-productive agent time.
To learn more about schedule adherence and best practices, click here.
Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO Miami 2013, Jan 29- Feb. 1 in Miami, Florida. Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO (News - Alert). Follow us on Twitter.
Edited by Jamie Epstein