By Susan J. Campbell, Call Center Management Contributing Editor

The call center is a strategically positioned customer service channel that the organization deploys to often be the first point of interaction between the customer and the company. As such, it is important that the call center is properly staffed at all times so that each and every customer receives the expected level of service.

 

As call volumes can change hourly, daily, weekly and monthly, properly staffing the call center is a consistent challenge for managers. Many methods have been employed to try and overcome this problem, most significantly advanced methods for forecasting call volumes. While proper forecasting can help to address the problem, it is not the only thing the call center must do to ensure proper staffing at all times.

Beyond the consistently changing call volumes within the call center, managers must also be able to juggle start time, end time, agent breaks, lunches, requests for days off, vacations, absences due to training, coaching and more. With so much to juggle in the basic scheduling of the call center, many managers are seeking ways to move from fixed shifts to implement flexible shifts. The main challenge in such an initiative is the lack of the necessary tools to make this move.

 

While flexible shifts can deliver such benefits as the ability to adjust the agent level according to actual call volume and schedule according to agent time away from their stations, many call centers lack the necessary tools to make flexible shifts work within their environments.

In an attempt to move the call center to more flexible scheduling, some managers have implemented spreadsheet and other manual methods. Such an approach can help to begin to address the issue, but will be time and labor intensive. In addition, when mass changes are handed down from upper levels – a new campaign that will require intensive training – changes throughout the schedule are cumbersome and leave too much room for error.

A flexible shift model is often exactly what the call center needs and Monet Software can deliver the solution to make this possible. When implementing a flexible scheduling model with help from Monet Software, the agent level of the call center is better aligned with actual or forecasted call volumes.

Such a solution also helps the center to deliver higher levels of service by reducing wait times and work stress. It can also lower costs by reducing the amount of time an agent is idle. When a call center manager can implement a solution that automates a time consuming process and streamlines operations, the overall performance of the call center improves.