Workforce management (WFM) is about culture, policy, and procedure. A WFM solution can help employees keep prepared to make customers happy, writes Todd Cotharin, COO, CommunityWFM
Picture this: You’re at home and you just received the package you’ve been waiting for all week. You opened it and discovered you were delivered the wrong size shirt. You call the customer support number looking to return the shirt and receive the correct size. In an ideal scenario, the contact center agent picks up within the first or second ring, takes the time to understand what happened, and lastly, resolves the mishap within minutes. Following the call, you receive an immediate note from the contact center summarizing your conversation and requesting feedback on your experience. In total, the entire process takes only a couple of minutes.
While this seems like a simple process, customers are blind to what goes on in the back office of the contact center. If multiple agents call in sick all at once or if the contact center didn’t anticipate a surge in calls due to a complex new promotion, then what was once a great customer interaction can go wrong in seconds. For this reason, companies should incorporate a workforce management solutionOpens a new window in their contact center, ultimately benefiting both the agents and customers. Keep in mind workforce management shouldn’t revolve solely around a software solution. Rather, workforce management is about culture, policy, and procedure. Having an automated workforce management solution is the engine driving these business practices.
1. Utilize Your Staff to the Fullest
For contact centers, workforce management analysts are tasked with forecasting how many customer interactions will occur each day. Without a workforce management solution in place, many analysts rely on spreadsheets and manual analysis. While Excel spreadsheets can help, it can take hours to figure out the insights you’re looking for, leaving your agents handling upset customers who might have spent 5-10 minutes waiting in queue for help.
Instead, companies can integrate their workforce management solution into their communications platform, allowing them to accurately forecast the number of calls, emails, chats, and other media coming into the contact center and how long each transaction type takes to handle. Analysts receive this data, providing them the information they need to build agent schedules to ensure customers receive the best experience.
Learn More: Automation as the Key to Contingent Workforce Management
2. Flexibility Is Key
Although workforce management can help companies forecast what days contact centers will see a surge, no forecast is perfect. Even the weatherman gets the forecast wrong. Whether it’s a natural disaster impacting power and agents or an integral part of your contact center tech stack lagging, there’s no way to predict the surprises that can pop up. For this reason, companies must incorporate intraday management to understand the impact of the change on the day’s service level.
With the current health crisis, now more than ever, it’s important to understand the impact a sudden change can have on a contact center. Seeking a workforce management solution that allows managers to communicate in-platform with employees both in and out of the office creates flexibility and provides managers the opportunity to quickly address any last-minute changes. This is key especially today.
Learn More: Guide to Remote Workforce Management: Trends, Tips, and TacticsOpens a new window
3. Improve Agent Adherence
Just like any other job, agents have meetings, training, breaks, etc. Without understanding what agents are doing at any given time, customers could be left unanswered. Instead, workforce management software can help companies understand what their agents are doing and see where time is missing. This doesn’t mean an agent isn’t doing their work. Rather, if an agent gets pulled into another project and the time isn’t logged, the workforce management analyst can see that time missing and connect with the individual to understand what happened. Even having 97% adherence in a 100-seat contact center means you’re paying for three agents who aren’t working. Adherence is not meant to focus on capturing and correcting bad behavior, it’s about accurately measuring all of the work conducted in a contact center. Having access to this information can help companies save costs and utilize their current resources to ensure success.
Customers have multiple companies to choose from for their purchases. They don’t care if the contact center is having issues finding agents or handling schedules. Instead, they expect to have their call answered immediately and their issue is easily resolved. Putting a workforce management tool in place allows contact centers to ensure success with their agents and, ultimately, their customers.
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