Workforce Optimization: More Important than Ever in the Tweetosphere

Interesting commentary recently from Dhiraj Rajaram, founder and CEO of Mu Sigma, and Lakshmi Manasa, analyst with Mu Sigma, a company which helps clients institutionalize data-driven decision making.

They walk the familiar ground of discussing how, in today’s blogosphere, Tweetosphere, Facebookosphere, whatever instant communication -osphere you want, bad news travels a lot faster than it used to. A lot. Somebody gets a bad tuna tartare with avocado at lunch, by evening her circle of friends is cancelling their reservations.

But it’s your call center you need to be worried about, as Rajaram and Manasa say. And they’re realists, they know where you’re coming from: “Companies have budgets to meet, opportunity costs to consider, and investors to please. Hence, they inevitably find themselves balancing call center operating costs with customer satisfaction gains.”

In fact, they offer the refreshing observation that everybody’s favorite answer to a problem, throw more money at it, isn’t the best one: “Many executive teams tend to think that the best lever for improving the customer experience is to invest more money in operations. We believe that it isn't so. In fact, throwing cash at the problem most certainly does not guarantee a rise in customer satisfaction.”

So what to do? Improve your analytics. And as they say, that starts with your call centers, since they generate more data than any other department in your organization.

To get the most out of the data we’ll assume you are collecting in your call center -- odds are good that you already have most of the information you need -- use performance analytics. Call routing, call volume forecasting, and workforce planning, the authors say, as well as “customer experience analytics such as customer satisfaction assessment and optimal issue resolution path are all tools at a call center's disposal.”

Among other good points the authors make -- the entire article is well worth the read -- they do a good job explaining the importance of workforce management and first-call resolution rates, calling them “the low-hanging fruit of call center analytics,” adding that other important components are an intelligent IVR supported by dynamic optimization models at the back end, and using Web analytics in understanding a customer's pulse based on their online activity.

Both, as they say, are “vital to enhance customer satisfaction” since the additional information “not only assists in quicker issue resolution but also opportunities to cross-sell based on a customer's interests.”

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