Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Use the Contact Center Schedule to Build in Long-Term Goal Achievement
The success or failure of a contact center endeavor may seem like it rests on how well agents and managers do their jobs, but there’s more to it than that. Even the most well-meaning agent or the most skilled manager will fall behind and fail to meet his or her goals if the contact center is working to a realistic schedule.
Scheduling is a skill that some contact center managers have, and many more simply don’t. While today’s modern scheduling solutions have gone a long way toward helping those without Erlang and other mathematical skills build more realistic schedules, managers still need to use some brain power in figuring how what to schedule, when, and for how long.
This not only helps the contact center ensure that all tasks are completed, all customers are served and call and other contact queues don’t get too long, but it can also help with the center’s long-term goals of profitability, better trained agents (and lower turnover) and broad customer satisfaction.
In a recent blog post, Impact Learning Systems’ Peggy Carlow writes that managerial success in the contact center often rests on the ability to create action plans.
“Setting goals is one thing; implementing them is another,” she writes. “Allow us to introduce you to the Action Plan. For example, say you set a goal in Step 1 of completing a coaching course so you can become certified in the Support Staff Excellence program. That’s your goal—completion of the course. Your action plan will define how you reach your goal. Here's how you might write that action plan: set aside two hours every week on Monday and Wednesday to go through the support center coaching curriculum. Next will be to pick three new skills from the course every week and apply it at work. Based on the study schedule, I’ll be ready to take the test by October 15th.”
Makes sense, until you realize that the average contact center often simply can’t seem to spare two hours every week, since it’s generally engaged in “putting out fires.” By ensuring that you schedule ALL activities and not just time on the phone or other media, you can ensure that the day’s short-term goals – such as meeting key performance indicators – are met, while there is also time for long-term strategies to improve the overall operation of the contact center.
Cloud-based scheduling solutions such as those offered by Monet Software, can save man-hours thanks to automation, improved accuracy and advanced features such as exception management. Used by skilled managers who understand the need to build in EVERY activity that benefits the contact center in the long term, these solutions can find extra hours in the schedule each week to do more than simply keep disasters from unfolding.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi