Workforce Optimization Featured Article

The workforce optimization market is an ever-changing space, especially with the recent developments in social media and the cloud. Security has become a vital and imperative feature of today’s CRM systems as agents adapt to working with fewer physical tools and more monitoring solutions. Contact centers are being forced to reexamine the ways in which they handle customer data, how they guide their agents, and issues that crop up with employees working from remote locations.

To get a better understanding of how exactly workforce optimization leaders and providers are gaining ground and staying ahead of the curve, I spoke with the Director of Innovation & Solutions for NICE Systems (News - Alert), Matthew Storm. He indicated that businesses are realizing just how fast the multi-channel world is moving nowadays, and how NICE Systems is staying up-to-date on the latest developments in the WFO industry.

Storm noted, “If you look at the WFO market in the past five years, organizations are starting to realize that the multi-channel world is moving much faster than expected.  NICE has a robust platform to support multi-channel initiatives that include our recent developments in multi-channel scheduling, forecasting, monitoring and agent guidance.  Agent guidance is of particular interest to our customers at the moment, given that fact that organizations no longer have the luxury of just simply training an  employee and hoping for the best.”

He revealed that organizations should focus on three main areas to leverage results from analytics and quality monitoring: Next-best-action guidance based on real-time activity, next-best-offer guidance based on personal and contextual information about the customer, and process guidance that will be able to walk an agent through a tricky procedure.

As with any data-centered industry, the workforce optimization space has its security-related challenges. Addressing these challenges in the most precise way possible, organizations must be prepared to handle tons of interactions in a completely secure way. Storm detailed, “Employees in the leading contact centers around the world handle thousands, sometimes millions of interactions on a daily basis.  The information that resides in CRM systems must be protected and the use of the information must be monitored, even among staff during working hours.”

Contact centers are primarily concerned with encryption and payment card industry (PCI (News - Alert)) standards, according to Storm, which leaves them no space for error while dealing with customer data. NICE Systems’ security-handling software addresses these vital requirements for any business, and have recently been selected for them on a global front.