Workforce Optimization Can Maximize Contact Center Performance

Workforce optimization is a key initiative within the contact center industry as organizations continue to push their contact centers to be more productive, effective, efficient and less of a cost burden. The technology has traditionally been significantly underused in the contact center industry, but that may be beginning to change.

According to recent Aberdeen (News - Alert) study, laggard and industry average firms will close the gap in terms of workforce optimization technology adoption over the next 24 months.

Aberdeen, a Harte-Hanks Company, has also identified that those firms that have focused on the integration of specific individual technologies will come out as best-in-class companies.

This Aberdeen assessment is based on the adoption of several key workforce optimization technologies. These include quality monitoring, analytics, performance metrics, eLearning, workforce management, scorecards and outbound dialing.

"In addition to technology adoption, firms will need to look at other areas to best optimize the contact center workforce," stated Alan W. Hubbard, senior vice president of the Customer Service and Support practice, in a company statement. "These areas are process, organization and knowledge, with the most obvious being organization agent training and coaching."

This report on workforce optimization indicates that 76 percent and 70 percent of best-in-class companies and industry average companies respectively have this in place. Roughly half, or 49 percent, of laggard firms have agent training and coaching in place.

"Even with the right technologies," added Hubbard, "if an agent is unable to effectively utilize the features and functions at hand, it's like they aren't there at all; thus defeating the purpose of their implementation."

Aberdeen also found that best-in-class firms look for integration that will allow them to capture agent/customer interaction and provide feedback into the improvement process. In addition, these best-in-class companies must follow through with specific tasks to reach this goal.

These tasks include tracking call center performance across all channels; providing outbound proactive customer service; and implementing a workforce optimization suite.

The full Aberdeen report outlines the results that best-in-class organizations have seen across several key contact center metrics and compares these results to those considered to be industry average and laggard companies.

Best-in-class companies have proven that not only are workforce optimization implementations imperative to the success of the contact center, it also has implications across the entire organization. When the contact center is properly managed and running efficiently, the rest of the organization can experience optimal performance. What’s more, customers are more satisfying, guaranteeing a stronger and more loyal customer base to drive ongoing revenues.

Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMC (News - Alert) and has also written for eastbiz.com. To see more of her articles, please visit Susan J. Campbell’s columnist page.

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