Managing call volume is always a challenge for contact centers, but it is especially so during an economic downturn. The state of the economy can increase or decrease contact centers' call volumes outside of normal, annual cyclical changes. Inaccurate staffing levels can lead to preventable personnel costs or too few agents handling calls, resulting in poor service and displeased customers. Contact centers need to make sure they are staffing correctly for the twists and turns the economy can have on customer service.
Economic uncertainty necessitates increased agent planning, and workforce management software can improve forecasting, simplify scheduling, maintain productivity and keep up morale. Following are ways in which workforce management can successfully help with agent planning during a down economy:
- Accurate Forecasting Leads to Happy Agents and Customers
In a downturn, any number of factors can leave contact center managers wondering how to properly forecast and anticipate staffing needs. For instance, with consumers hanging tightly onto their wallets, a promotion on a particular item may not generate the same level of call volume as in the past, and callers also may be less responsive to up-sell offerings.
Workforce management software can minimize the guesswork and ensure a contact center is not overstaffed, wasting staff time and money, or understaffed, leading to long hold times, dropped calls and unhappy customers. This adds some level of predictability to the equation.
During a downturn, forecasting may require some manipulation in order to anticipate and accommodate the current situation. In the example above, forecasting for special events would allow you to model call volume impact of a new promotion, based off of a past event. You can anticipate call volume impact across multiple days of a promotion. For example, starting two days after a mailing, traditionally there may be a 15 percent increase in call volume for three days. Schedulers could then adjust an impact ratio to scale it up or back, making adjustments for shifts due to economic changes.
What-if scenarios can also help with staffing level projections to meet service levels, taking into account different forecast scenarios. You can generate multiple distribution and forecast scenarios to determine the most likely to occur, given the current situation. As a result, you are then able to calculate and estimate resource requirements. This enables you to better understand and manage your contact center during times that have varying contact volumes and contact patterns.
An effective workforce management system also facilitates regular, intraday staffing adjustments to fine-tune schedules if gaps occur during each time interval. - Simplify scheduling processes to maintain productivity
An effective workforce management system is always key to maintaining productivity (and controlling costs), especially during an economic downturn. Workforce management can provide the strategic insight required to manage an important component of productivity, which is agent adherence to the schedule.
When budgets are tight, contact center managers must have a very strong grasp on how agents are spending their time and whether they're following their assigned schedules. All the best planning in the world goes out the window with poor adherence.
A workforce management system can provide historical and real-time adherence reports to watch for inconsistencies between the assigned schedule and the actual activities of the agents. Historical adherence reports show a detailed, daily summary of an agent's activity compared to the schedule. With real-time adherence reports, a supervisor can monitor what an agent is doing at any particular time – for example, if the agent is on a call, viewing a training demo or on a break.
When schedules and activities match up, there is appropriate coverage of customer calls, important non-call activities such as training takes place, and the company saves money through the efficient use of agents' time. - Motivate agents and reward them for their performance and flexibility
During the downturn, agent concerns will arise with regard to job security. Frustration may set in if there is a constant fluctuation in schedules. In order to keep the agents motivated and engaged, it is essential for supervisors to be mindful of the frustrations and reward high performance results and agent flexibility.
Agents tend to be better motivated and productive when they feel empowered and have access to information about their schedules and performance. Workforce management tools allow agents to personally view their schedules and monitor their performance. Supervisors maintain approval control, but agents can trade work shifts with other agents who have similar skill sets or request specific dates for time off. With browser-based access, agents can do this at home or at any contact center location. The flexibility allows for easy schedule transitions without elevated frustration from the agents.
In monitoring performance, agents can check their own daily productivity indicators to keep their performance on track. Performance-based scheduling in workforce management allows supervisors to reward agents with their desired schedule based on how well they're doing their jobs.
A contact center agent is the face of the company to many customers. When a business is weathering an economic storm, there's little room for error. It is even more critical to hold on to the customers you have. When one call experience can shape a customer's loyalty and perception of the company for the long-term, workforce management tools can increase a contact center's chance for success.
About the author
Tim Kraskey is vice president of Marketing and Business Development for Calabrio, a leading provider of workforce optimization and unified contact center desktop software that enables continuous business improvements in productivity, efficiency and customer satisfaction. He can be reached at tim.kraskey@calabrio.com..
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