During tough economic times, contact centers need to find ways to do more with less in order to maximize resources. However, they cannot afford to do so at the expense of the customer relationship. Losing customers should not be a natural consequence of streamlining operations. With the right tools, achieving more contact center efficiency can place a company on a stronger road to recovery as business picks up. Applications such as workforce management, performance dashboards and speech analytics can help an enterprise save time and money while simultaneously solidifying and growing customer loyalty. Here are three tips to help contact centers do more with less for the betterment of the company and its customers:

1). Use workforce management for effective use of agents’ time

When managing through the lean times, contact center leadership needs to remember that the greatest impact on customer service, customer satisfaction, efficiency and costs is balanced staffing. Agents with time on their hands or a contact center that is understaffed during peak call volumes can lead to issues with customer satisfaction, productivity, and agent turnover and morale.

More contact centers could leverage workforce management (WFM) tools to accurately forecast contact volume and associated agent requirements, develop schedules for multiple sites, track key performance indicators and manage real-time adherence to schedules. Now is a good time to consider the technology – particularly tools that cover the basics without taking a tremendous amount of time and effort to implement and maintain.

Improving forecast accuracy can generate immediate cost savings by reducing the need for overstaffing. And what traditionally may be viewed as unproductive agent “downtime” can be filled with activities that further benefit the business. For instance, a supervisor can assign agents to proactive outreach in support of a marketing campaign or conduct call-backs to customers.

A valuable WFM tool also allows agents to take control of their own scheduling needs, enabling them to request time off, enter vacation requests, trade shifts and monitor their own performance.

2). Use speech analytics for deeper understanding of customer satisfaction and agent performance

As the economy slowly gains ground, businesses must ride that momentum and not make mistakes that will drive customers to the competition. Every interaction between a call center and a customer presents an opportunity to strengthen a relationship, build loyalty and drive sales. Contact centers are increasingly turning to speech analytics to find calls of interest to pinpoint issues, identify trends and improve performance. And while the complexity of many initial speech analytics products may have hindered adoption, progress is being made toward simplification. For example, phonetics-based technology locates words or phrases within spoken audio, which is faster and less complex to deploy than alternative speech-to-text-based solutions.

Speech analytics automates the process of “listening” to calls, which allows a business to pinpoint vital calls that might have gone unnoticed with more traditional, manual monitoring methods. It automates the process of “listening to” and “categorizing” every call without having to actually listen to every call: 

• Customer service issues – By flagging key words that indicate anger or frustration, a company can head off issues with products, services or processes before they lead to a customer hanging up and turning to the competition.

• Competitive threats –Mention of a competitor’s name could be stemming from a poor experience with a product or a competitor’s targeted marketing campaign.

• First call resolution –Uncover gaps in knowledge or processes that lead to costly, repetitive calls. Find out whether a caller is not getting an answer or having to repeatedly dial in for help.

• Script compliance – Deviating from a script or process can result in an unhappy customer, an inefficient response process, and put the business at risk – particularly if the company is in a highly regulated industry. Key-word matching on required script elements flags potential problems.

3). Use performance management dashboards to provide front-line supervisors with clear, measurable performance metrics

During a challenging economy, contact centers need to rely more than ever on supervisors to think strategically and ensure agents are contributing to larger business goals. Effective performance dashboards can help. Supervisors should not be required to toggle between applications and reports to see a full picture of performance. Rather, high-level dashboards should present performance of their team against other teams and the whole organization -thereby exposing critical trends in a clear and concise manner. Supervisors should have ready access to the performance of individual agents and teams - with minimal time and effort. Comparison reports, detailed call information, adherence reports, call recordings and evaluations, and collaboration tools should be accessible with a few clicks, enabling the supervisor to set training priorities and take immediate or longer-term corrective action.