Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
October 23, 2009
Tips for Selecting Call Center Scheduling Software, Part 2
If you’re a small to medium sized business with a call center, there’s a fairly good chance you’ve cut back on your agent staffing in the past year, due to the recession. In the meantime, your call center managers are probably under intense pressure to hold down operating costs, while at the same time maintaining service levels.
And that’s important, because delivering consistently good customer service is even more paramount in this down economy. Businesses are desperate to retain what precious few customers they have left.
Still, holding the bottom line is just as important, and since labor is the single biggest cost facing any call center, businesses are seeking solutions that can help them more accurately schedule the proper number of agents, based on call volume. This way, they avoid the waste associated with over-scheduling and having agents sit around idly, waiting for contacts to come in.
As a result, many businesses are migrating from manual scheduling systems, such as spreadsheets, to call center scheduling software (also known as workforce management software). With the advanced analytics capabilities of today’s call center scheduling solutions, call center managers can forecast, with a high degree of accuracy, how many agents will be needed for any given shift.
And that’s important, because delivering consistently good customer service is even more paramount in this down economy. Businesses are desperate to retain what precious few customers they have left.
Still, holding the bottom line is just as important, and since labor is the single biggest cost facing any call center, businesses are seeking solutions that can help them more accurately schedule the proper number of agents, based on call volume. This way, they avoid the waste associated with over-scheduling and having agents sit around idly, waiting for contacts to come in.
As a result, many businesses are migrating from manual scheduling systems, such as spreadsheets, to call center scheduling software (also known as workforce management software). With the advanced analytics capabilities of today’s call center scheduling solutions, call center managers can forecast, with a high degree of accuracy, how many agents will be needed for any given shift.
As discussed in Part 1 of this series, call center scheduling software vendors are increasingly delivering their solutions over the Internet, by way of the software-as-a-service model. This offers many advantages but perhaps most importantly it delivers fast return on investment, as there is no need to purchase new hardware, software licenses or network upgrades. All a company needs to start using today’s Web-based call center scheduling systems are the computers and a high-speed connection.
However, in recent years the call center scheduling software market has seen a flood of new entrants, making it difficult to choose a system that’s right for your company’s needs.
So how does one go about selecting a call center scheduling solution? Here are two more tips to help you navigate the sea of solutions.
Time for Implementation
It’s important to consider the amount of time and resources it will take to implement the solution. Questions to ask include: How long does it take to implement the solution from start to finish? When can you actually begin to get benefits from the solution? Can I use the solution over the web without equipment purchase or do I need to buy and install hardware and software? How many people do I need (vendor and own company) to implement the solution?
Total Cost of Ownership
It’s also important to consider the total cost of purchasing, running and maintaining the solution. What are the total upfront costs for software, hardware, integration and implementation? What are the ongoing monthly or annual costs such as subscription, maintenance, support, upgrade fees? Many solutions have hidden costs that vendors don’t mention, but occur within your company, such as: your IT people installing and operating the server; your people helping to implement the solution; integration costs; and yearly upgrade costs.
Monet Software’s WFM Live is a fully Web-based call center scheduling system delivering advanced features and capabilities, including forecasting for accurate scheduling of agents. To learn more about the company’s call center scheduling solutions, be sure to check out its newly-redesigned Website. Here visitors can access a Workforce Management Success Kit offering additional tips on how to select a call center scheduling system.
Next week we’ll look at a few more tips on how to select a call center scheduling system.
So how does one go about selecting a call center scheduling solution? Here are two more tips to help you navigate the sea of solutions.
Time for Implementation
It’s important to consider the amount of time and resources it will take to implement the solution. Questions to ask include: How long does it take to implement the solution from start to finish? When can you actually begin to get benefits from the solution? Can I use the solution over the web without equipment purchase or do I need to buy and install hardware and software? How many people do I need (vendor and own company) to implement the solution?
Total Cost of Ownership
It’s also important to consider the total cost of purchasing, running and maintaining the solution. What are the total upfront costs for software, hardware, integration and implementation? What are the ongoing monthly or annual costs such as subscription, maintenance, support, upgrade fees? Many solutions have hidden costs that vendors don’t mention, but occur within your company, such as: your IT people installing and operating the server; your people helping to implement the solution; integration costs; and yearly upgrade costs.
Monet Software’s WFM Live is a fully Web-based call center scheduling system delivering advanced features and capabilities, including forecasting for accurate scheduling of agents. To learn more about the company’s call center scheduling solutions, be sure to check out its newly-redesigned Website. Here visitors can access a Workforce Management Success Kit offering additional tips on how to select a call center scheduling system.
Next week we’ll look at a few more tips on how to select a call center scheduling system.
Patrick Barnard is a contributing writer for TMCnet. To read more of Patrick’s articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Patrick Barnard