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Unified Communications: December 29, 2010 eNewsletter
December 29, 2010

Workforce Optimization Drives Productivity Gains for the Contact Center

By Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor

Contact centers are an important part of any enterprise as they are often the primary interaction point between the company and the customer. At the same time, contact centers are also very expensive and decision makers are consistently searching for ways to streamline processes and reduce the cost burden of the contact center. Workforce optimization solutions help to do just that, while also providing key insight into performance and improvement opportunities.




This recent UC Strategies report examined this concept and workforce optimization is helping the contact center to change the way work gets done. The organization examined in this piece relied on Verint’s (News - Alert) Impact 360 Quality Monitoring solution. The implementation of this workforce optimization solution helped to improve productivity and the customer experience.

Prior to this deployment, the organization had relied on rather basic and obvious metrics to capture performance, such as total time to process an order, or the number of work orders processed by each agent. While this process did provide productivity measurements, they were still inconclusive or even misleading reports. The process did not provide detailed information that would offer insight into why one agent would process more orders than another or the bottlenecks that were caused and why.

The workforce optimization solution implemented passively monitors the workflow and identifies how long agents spend in various screens and applications. This focus helps to identify the bottlenecks that are slowing down an optimally productive environment. With these tools in place, the organization was able to achieve a 20 percent sustainable gain in productivity as a result improvements and supervision improvements.

To reveal an even bigger workforce optimization picture, analytical data can be combined with voice call data. Such an approach helps to provide impressive process visibility to uncover performance issues and address causes instead of just symptoms. At the same time, a software agent monitors activities and programs that are deployed on organization desktops, and passively collects information to identify training opportunities and populate the database.

Without a robust workforce optimization platform in place, productivity reports will often generate more questions than answers. A solution such as Verint’s can help to enable data-driven answers and increased awareness. It can also help the organization to uncover hidden service and quality issues. And, when productivity is improved, there is generally also an ROI associated with cost reductions and improved customer satisfaction.

The contact center is heavily focused on productivity and efficiency and workforce optimization tools enable broader and more complex workflows in a streamlined process. With the right tools in place, the contact center can drive even more value for the organization and an optimal experience for the customer.


Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMCnet and has also written for eastbiz.com. To read more of Susan’s articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Jaclyn Allard

(source: http://www.tmcnet.com/channels/workforce-optimization/articles/130384-workforce-optimization-drives-productivity-gains-the-contact-center.htm)








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