Workforce Management Featured Article

Why Workforce Management is Worth Consideration

Customer support is a full-time job. This not only means you need to have the staff in place to handle the demands of the customer; you also have to have the tools to manage that staff to ensure the efficient use of your resources. For many an organization, this means an investment in workforce management solutions.

One recent post by Thore Babin-Ebell, Director Business Development, ASC (News - Alert) telecom, highlighted the trends taking place in workforce management and workforce optimization solutions. Specific tools continue to evolve with the goal of supporting the customer. Applications emerging and evolving include desktop and speech analytics, coaching and workforce management, eLearning and more. The goal is to improve the customer service experience, providing the necessary functionality to deliver on customer expectations.

Digging deeper, speech analytics makes it possible for contact centers managing a higher volume of calls to effectively evaluate those customer interactions. Coaching and eLearning are also used to determine the weak areas where an agent can improve, while also offering customized instruction. When combined with call recording, agents get first-hand feedback on performance. At the same time, workforce management provides the necessary strategic tools to ensure the agent with the right skills handles each customer interaction.

Even when the economy is shaky or the market projections leave anxiety on the table, companies tend to be open to making investments in technologies that have proven value. A number of advanced technologies have not yet proven ROI, however, and proof of concept has become a more common practice to ensure the solution meets with general expectations.

In addition, there’s always a question of whether or not employees will use the solution - but that is easily answered in the company’s strategy for deployment. Is change management in place? Is the solution supported from the top down? Do users understand the value it brings and are they provided with the proper training so the solution is easy to use?

Companies like Monet Software have to demonstrate this value every time they are working with a new workforce management customer. It’s easy to talk about the promised benefits, but they have to be demonstrated in a real-world environment, supported by the vendor and deployed according to the needs of the environment. A failure to meet any of these expectations means the solution will fail, plain and simple.

Monet Software makes it a point to stay at the forefront of the challenges facing every customer service environment today. This includes studying best practices, talking to customers about challenges and training for optimal use of its solutions.