Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Real-Time Adherence Helps Contact Center Managers Save the Day
Many contact center managers pride themselves on the ability to build a great schedule. While this is certainly a terrific skill to have, far more important is the contact center’s ability to adhere to that schedule. A schedule that resembles reality about as much as a Picasso painting resembles a real person isn’t much use to any organization.
Adherence, of course, is the degree to which agents stick to their schedules, measured as a percentage. There are many factors that can throw off adherence: agents come back late from lunch, unexpected absences or agents who have to leave early to pick up a sick child, unexpected meetings or training sessions…the list is nearly endless.
Modern workforce management solutions are the best tool in a manager’s arsenal to ensure that adherence remains high. These solutions make it is easier for managers to continuously monitor and record the real-time status of agents in the call center to ensure that agents are available for calls, and take their lunch and breaks as per the schedule for that day. Too many contact centers, using more old-fashioned workforce management methods, only find out that adherence sticks days or weeks later. It’s real-time monitoring that counts, according to Monet Software CEO Chuck Ciarlo.
“That starts with real-time schedule adherence, which gives you the opportunity to react immediately to address problems,” wrote Ciarlo. “A workforce management system monitors agents in real time, and delivers instant alerts when adherence is not achieved. It also provides a means to analyze KPIs and compare forecasted, scheduled and actual contact center statistics.”
It’s not enough, of course, to simply know that the contact center is out of adherence: a good manager needs to know why, and the reasons may not be readily apparent. Thanks to a good workforce management solution, managers can drill down and uncover the reasons for the lack of adherence.
“Perhaps a certain time of day always seems to have lower adherence,” wrote Ciarlo. “By drilling down it’s possible to measure where goals are not being met, and communicate this to the team. Whether the issue is not enough schedule flexibility, or agents simply taking too many unscheduled breaks, there is now a chance to implement a satisfactory solution.”
Upon closer examination, managers may realize that certain workgroups, departments or even individual agents are the cause of the dropping adherence levels. By identifying quickly the source of the problems, managers can take steps to correct them in real time, and essentially “save the day.”
Edited by Stefania Viscusi