Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Poor Scheduling and Workforce Management Undermine Even the Best Agent Efforts
When customer service numbers fall, or customers complain, it’s tempting to blame the agents. “They didn’t do their jobs,” or “they’re not following company rules” are common refrains. It’s important to keep perspective, however: warm greetings, listening, using available databases and software resources to provide correct answers are definitely part of the agent’s job. If the call queues are getting long, hold times keep extending outwards and customers bark in annoyance at being kept waiting, it’s not the agents not doing their jobs…it’s the call center manager’s problem.
Long call queues plague most organizations at one time or another. They are a risk of doing business, particularly if organizations are affected by unforeseen events like storms, power outages, network outages or flu outbreaks. Good organizations take steps to mitigate long call queues, usually by implementing robust workforce management (WFM) and scheduling solutions, according to a recent blog post by Monet Software (News - Alert) CEO Chuck Ciarlo.
“With the advanced functionality and the more accurate forecasting and scheduling made possible by WFM, as well as the data it delivers on agent performance, schedule adherence and KPIs, contact center managers can always be assured the contact center’s resources are being utilized in the most efficient and cost-effective manner,” wrote Ciarlo.
Real-time adherence to schedules is critical if the contact center isn’t to operate in a state of panicked chaos day after day. Things happen: employees are late coming back from breaks, training sessions run long, IT problems occur. If an organization doesn’t have real-time guidance for maintaining adherence, the schedule will be followed for little more than the first 10 minutes of each day. It’s important to note that real-time adherence is virtually impossible with workforce management by spreadsheet.
“Spot-checks are fine as far as they go, but without the real-time tracking provided by WFM there is a higher risk of over/under staffing, shrinkage and missed service levels,” wrote Ciarlo.
Another benefit of modern workforce management solution is the ability to go many layers deep in skills-based routing. Customer business can be complex today, and many contact centers use dozens of skills into order to match the right agents with customers. Ensuring that the right people are available at all times to handle incoming calls is critical if the contact center doesn’t want to extend hold times and transfers or require the customer to explain himself over and over again. Surveys have found that these factors are the most cited as annoyances by customers.
Finally, it’s important to consider the merits of a good workforce management solution if your company relies on customer support personnel who are not all located under the same roof. Thanks to the cloud delivery model today, workforce management can tie all the employees of a contact center, regardless of where they are located, into a single well-oiled machine.
“Companies with multiple contact center locations require a means to coordinate personnel, resources and schedules at each facility so the service they provide is consistent,” he wrote. “There may also be agents working from home that must be accounted for. WFM delivers these multi-site capabilities.”
Managers have a responsibility both to agents and to customers to ensure that the channels of communications are staffed by a sufficient number of knowledgeable people with the right skills. Without a proper support foundation in the form of a good workforce management and scheduling solution, agents will quickly realize that their best efforts are being undermined by administrative failures, and they’ll stop trying their best, which is bad news for everyone.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi