As organizations embrace a renewed focus on customer retention in light of today’s economic climate, their contact center staffing capacity models—designed to meet volume and demand—may be at risk of falling further down the priority list. And what most companies don’t realize is it can actually help manage costs and improve operational efficiencies in uncontrollable times. Strategic planning supports enterprise-wide forecasting by projecting staffing needs down to the activity or position level. It looks out over longer horizons, taking into consideration activity levels spanning months or even years into the future. Even more importantly, it can make the difference between deciding how many more agents are required to handle seasonal spikes and determining if you need agents at all.

In companies where customer care is a top priority, strategic planning can support corporate objectives as they adjust through tightened labor markets and service dominated economies. Following are five key tips to keep in mind as you look to leverage strategic planning in your customer contact center.

1. Understand the difference between long-term, strategic planning and short-term, tactical planning.
Understanding the basic differences between strategic and tactical planning can make a dramatic difference in the tools you select to help with either task. Strategic planning tends to be longer term and focused on meeting business goals without the noise and detail of tactical planning, which places more emphasis on deploying daily and weekly schedules.

2. Recognize the link between strategic planning and weekly forecasting and scheduling.
It’s a mistake to think of weekly forecasting and scheduling as an isolated process, divorced from strategic planning. Short-term planning often suffers when you don’t consider alternatives in the longer term. For example, strategic planning, properly executed, can reveal when new employees need to be hired so they are productive when they are actually required.

3. Go beyond budget planning and full-time employee (FTE) calculations.
Strategic planning involves running multiple scenarios to define a fairly detailed roadmap for the future. For example: which queues will be handled by live agents; what kinds of transactions will be handled through self-service? By comparing the strategic model with actual results every month, the assumptions and operating dynamics can be verified and refined, leading to better daily operational results.

4. Plan for contingencies.
No matter how well you forecast in the long or short term, there may be deviations between your planning and reality. At times, these differences may be so significant that they dictate changes to staffing plans—right now! Strategic planning helps you compile lists of employees who are willing to work overtime, or those who are willing to cut their shifts short—and consequently, their paychecks—when activity in the center is low.

5. Determine the right staffing mix.
A key part of strategic planning is determining the right staffing mix between full- and part-time employees, and then deciding whether overtime is a useful substitute for additional headcount or cross-training initiatives in your operation. Contact centers often make the mistake in thinking that overtime is vastly more expensive than straight time. It’s actually not—particularly when you analyze the cost of unproductive, full-time employees. Centers have found that maintaining a 60/40 or 70/30 ratio between full-time and part-time employees permits them to better align resources with transaction demand, while avoiding idle time during non-peak periods.

The intent of strategic planning is to anticipate future events by examining current trends. Trends should be considered at two levels: those that directly affect your industry and business, and those that directly affect contact center operations. The contact center is a mission-critical resource in many businesses and needs to be in tune with the goals and direction of the broader organization. By aligning resources with projected customer demand, changing market conditions and corporate objectives, strategic planning can enable you to develop “what if” scenarios. Armed with these, optimum trade-offs among costs, service levels, revenue and staffing can be determined. Now’s the time to get planning!