Workforce Management Featured Article

Workforce Management is Easy

Workforce management (WFM) is vital for contact centers as it provides them with the software and services that they need to capture and analyze customer interaction across all channels in order to make help them make strategic decisions to increase overall efficiency and effectiveness.  

However, sometimes these solutions are costly and complicated to use, which is why Calabrio (News - Alert), a provider of workforce optimize software, has created a whitepaper, “Workforce Management Doesn’t Have to be So Hard,” to help call centers uncover just how easy workforce management software is to operate.

“Back in the days when WFM solutions were used predominantly by large contact centers that had at least one dedicated WFM analyst, the complexity was acceptable,” says Calabrio in the whitepaper. “But no more. Managers in contact centers with anywhere from 10 to thousands of agents want WFM solutions that can help them deliver outstanding service consistently and cost-effectively. Mid-sized and smaller environments cannot afford to dedicate one or more analysts to oversee their WFM solutions, and large contact centers would prefer less tedious and time-demanding applications.”

In simple terms, the core WFM modules consist of forecasting, scheduling, intra-day, real-time adherence and agent self-service.

Forecasting and scheduling are two fundamental features of any WFM software, and together they help a call center figure out the expected volume of calls, e-mails, chat sessions and social media interactions each day. After these numbers are determined, an organization can then correctly put the amount of agents on the schedule to handle the workflow that is coming in. This helps call centers put enough agents on the schedule to answer all the calls, but not too many to the point that they are losing money.

Agent self-service lets agents take an active part of their scheduling, which takes some of the pressure off managers.

Intra-management extracts data from the performance of the department allows managers to adjust agent schedules and notify them when volume differs from the predicted forecast. When there is unexpected call volumes coming in, intra-management helps alert agents and make sure there is cover during this time. 

Real-time tools capture the performance of agents so that managers don’t have to waste their time and effort analyzing each employee. So, if an agent is taking lunch breaks that are longer than the company gives them or is a few minutes late to each morning, these solutions notify the manager of what is going on. 

For those call centers that have a workforce management solution without these features, it is time to upgrade and purchase a new software -- one that will free supervisors from the administrative tasks of management scheduling, respond effectively to fluctuation resource demands and realize staff costs saving from reduced overstaffing and overtime.

For more information on how to leverage a workforce management solution in a call center, please visit Monet Software, a provider of call center solutions.