Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
March 13, 2009
Still Using Spreadsheets to Schedule your Contact Center Agents?
Are you still using spreadsheets to schedule your contact center agents?
Time to start saving money and improving customer service with workforce management software!
As you probably know, labor is the single biggest expense facing any contact center. That’s why getting the right number of agents in place to answer incoming calls, place outbound calls, respond to emails and handle Web contacts at any given point in time is critical: If you over-staff, you’re flushing money down the toilet – if you under-staff, you risk eroding customer service and killing employee morale.
Today’s workforce management (WFM) systems help with this balancing act by enabling contact center managers can react more quickly to changes in call volume. Many of these systems can perform analytics that actually predict when there will be peaks and valleys in call volume, so contact center managers can staff accordingly.
By integrating the WFM system with the contact center’s automatic call distributor (ACD), you can access historical and current call information to predict future call volume based on overall trends and create accurate forecasts. These forecasts can be automatically updated with new information about contact patterns through a direct interface with contact center systems such as the ACD, outbound dialer, or e-mail/fax servers.
What’s more, many of these systems allow agents to have control over their own schedules, in that they can add, cancel or swap shifts with other agents, using a Web-based interface, often without the need for manager approval.
Another advantage of today’s WFM systems is their ability to schedule agents based on their unique skill sets. For example, if you’re contact center handles Web chats, but you only have a certain number of agents who are trained to handle those contacts, then you’ll need to ensure that you have the proper number of those agents on hand to handle the volume. A WFM system can analyze your historical Web chat data and arrive at an accurate forecast to help you staff accordingly.
But perhaps the most important functionality of today’s WFM systems is the intra-day comparison of actual performance against the plan. Contact center managers must be able to compare actual workload to the forecast -- and actual number of staff on the phones to the schedule plan -- and they need to see these changes in real time in order to make necessary adjustments to meet service goals.
If you’re running a smaller sized contact center, you might be thinking “WFM is only for the big guys – for us little guys, spreadsheets work just fine.” But in reality, achieving the proper staffing/volume balance is many times more challenging with a smaller contact center staff because:
--The behavior of individual agents has a bigger impact on overall center performance;
--Fewer agents need to multitask, making skill-based scheduling more complex; and
--It is more difficult to correct the schedule once it has been upset by unexpected events.
So how does the spreadsheet approach stack up against an automated WFM solution? Here are a few quick bullet points comparing the two:
--With a spreadsheet, you are limited to a fixed schedule, which can lead to higher attrition and/or overstaffing. Whereas with a WFM system you have total flexibility -- you can easily manage start, end and break times, which can drastically reduce agent idle time and improve service levels.
--With a spreadsheet, you can’t automatically incorporate call history to arrive at a forecast – you have to do it manually. Not only is this time consuming, you generally end up with less accurate forecasts. Whereas with a WFM system you get real-time and historic ACD call history with accurate forecasting and the ability to make quick schedule adjustments.
--With a spreadsheet it’s difficult to mange agents based on their specific skills sets, mainly because it’s difficult to account for which agents have which skills. That means you can end up overstaffed with agents with certain skill sets, understaffed with others. Whereas with a WFM solution you can schedule agents automatically based on their skills, resulting in more efficient staffing and higher service levels with fewer agents.
--With a spreadsheet, tracking and schedule adherence are next to impossible: You are limited to “spot checking” only. This leads to higher shrinkage, missed service levels and over/under staffing. Whereas with a WFM solution r you get real-time adherence monitoring and analysis, which in turn can reduce shrinkage by 15 minutes per agent per day, as well as improved service levels.
--With a spreadsheet, you can’t account as easily for staff exceptions and desires. This, in turn, can result in lower agent motivation and higher shrinkage. But with a WFM solution, you get automatic consideration of exceptions, which keeps agents happy and boosts productivity.
--With a spreadsheet, you’ll spend more administrative time handling the scheduling process. This takes away time from more important activities like monitoring and coaching. With a WFM solution you can save up to 25% the time you spend creating schedules.
Most of today’s WFM systems are available on a hosted or software-as-a-service basis, which means they don’t require much in terms of upfront capital investment. Most of these Web-based systems are full-featured and can be implemented with hours (generally, all you need is high speed line).
That means you can sign up for a service and try it out for a while to see if it meets your needs, often without any major commitment. Many of these hosted systems are offered on a per-agent, per-month basis, so you only pay for the service you use.
Monet Software’s WFM Live solution, for example, is available for a low monthly fee, without upfront capital expenditure and very low risk. Currently the solution is available at a free, no-risk 30-day trial. For more information, visit www.monetsoftware.com.
Time to start saving money and improving customer service with workforce management software!
As you probably know, labor is the single biggest expense facing any contact center. That’s why getting the right number of agents in place to answer incoming calls, place outbound calls, respond to emails and handle Web contacts at any given point in time is critical: If you over-staff, you’re flushing money down the toilet – if you under-staff, you risk eroding customer service and killing employee morale.
Today’s workforce management (WFM) systems help with this balancing act by enabling contact center managers can react more quickly to changes in call volume. Many of these systems can perform analytics that actually predict when there will be peaks and valleys in call volume, so contact center managers can staff accordingly.
By integrating the WFM system with the contact center’s automatic call distributor (ACD), you can access historical and current call information to predict future call volume based on overall trends and create accurate forecasts. These forecasts can be automatically updated with new information about contact patterns through a direct interface with contact center systems such as the ACD, outbound dialer, or e-mail/fax servers.
What’s more, many of these systems allow agents to have control over their own schedules, in that they can add, cancel or swap shifts with other agents, using a Web-based interface, often without the need for manager approval.
Another advantage of today’s WFM systems is their ability to schedule agents based on their unique skill sets. For example, if you’re contact center handles Web chats, but you only have a certain number of agents who are trained to handle those contacts, then you’ll need to ensure that you have the proper number of those agents on hand to handle the volume. A WFM system can analyze your historical Web chat data and arrive at an accurate forecast to help you staff accordingly.
But perhaps the most important functionality of today’s WFM systems is the intra-day comparison of actual performance against the plan. Contact center managers must be able to compare actual workload to the forecast -- and actual number of staff on the phones to the schedule plan -- and they need to see these changes in real time in order to make necessary adjustments to meet service goals.
If you’re running a smaller sized contact center, you might be thinking “WFM is only for the big guys – for us little guys, spreadsheets work just fine.” But in reality, achieving the proper staffing/volume balance is many times more challenging with a smaller contact center staff because:
--The behavior of individual agents has a bigger impact on overall center performance;
--Fewer agents need to multitask, making skill-based scheduling more complex; and
--It is more difficult to correct the schedule once it has been upset by unexpected events.
So how does the spreadsheet approach stack up against an automated WFM solution? Here are a few quick bullet points comparing the two:
--With a spreadsheet, you are limited to a fixed schedule, which can lead to higher attrition and/or overstaffing. Whereas with a WFM system you have total flexibility -- you can easily manage start, end and break times, which can drastically reduce agent idle time and improve service levels.
--With a spreadsheet, you can’t automatically incorporate call history to arrive at a forecast – you have to do it manually. Not only is this time consuming, you generally end up with less accurate forecasts. Whereas with a WFM system you get real-time and historic ACD call history with accurate forecasting and the ability to make quick schedule adjustments.
--With a spreadsheet it’s difficult to mange agents based on their specific skills sets, mainly because it’s difficult to account for which agents have which skills. That means you can end up overstaffed with agents with certain skill sets, understaffed with others. Whereas with a WFM solution you can schedule agents automatically based on their skills, resulting in more efficient staffing and higher service levels with fewer agents.
--With a spreadsheet, tracking and schedule adherence are next to impossible: You are limited to “spot checking” only. This leads to higher shrinkage, missed service levels and over/under staffing. Whereas with a WFM solution r you get real-time adherence monitoring and analysis, which in turn can reduce shrinkage by 15 minutes per agent per day, as well as improved service levels.
--With a spreadsheet, you can’t account as easily for staff exceptions and desires. This, in turn, can result in lower agent motivation and higher shrinkage. But with a WFM solution, you get automatic consideration of exceptions, which keeps agents happy and boosts productivity.
--With a spreadsheet, you’ll spend more administrative time handling the scheduling process. This takes away time from more important activities like monitoring and coaching. With a WFM solution you can save up to 25% the time you spend creating schedules.
Most of today’s WFM systems are available on a hosted or software-as-a-service basis, which means they don’t require much in terms of upfront capital investment. Most of these Web-based systems are full-featured and can be implemented with hours (generally, all you need is high speed line).
That means you can sign up for a service and try it out for a while to see if it meets your needs, often without any major commitment. Many of these hosted systems are offered on a per-agent, per-month basis, so you only pay for the service you use.
Monet Software’s WFM Live solution, for example, is available for a low monthly fee, without upfront capital expenditure and very low risk. Currently the solution is available at a free, no-risk 30-day trial. For more information, visit www.monetsoftware.com.
Patrick Barnard is a contributing writer for TMCnet. To read more of Patrick’s articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Patrick Barnard