Workforce Management Featured Article
Tips for Developing a Case for Workforce Management
Have you measured the cost to your call center when agents are not in their seats and talking on the phone according to your schedule? Have you struggled to determine the best way to forecast for upcoming call volumes to ensure proper scheduling?
Your role as a call center leader is not without its challenges, but not all issues within the call center have to be a part of the game. With workforce management, you can more accurately schedule for anticipated call volumes and keep agents focused on scheduled activities.
This Monet Software blog focused on the value of workforce management as it relates to schedule adherence within the call center. With robust tools at your disposal, you’re better equipped to ensure the right staff with the right with the right skills are available at the right time to meet your demand.
Before selecting a workforce management solution for your environment, you first need to do your homework. The first exercise is to measure the cost to your call center when agents are out of adherence. This is a simple process that only requires an overview of the cost drivers in your environment and the potential impact they can have on your operation as a whole.
Next, you need to determine why schedule adherence is important as a call center metric. The value of workforce management is based in part on its ability to reduce out-of-adherence. If you want to make a business case to those who write the checks, you need to identify potential causes for out-of-adherence and methods for improving adherence with workforce management.
You then need to ask yourself whether or not you are currently monitoring schedule adherence in your call center. If you really want to focus on the importance of adherence, you need to inform your staff on the importance, measure their adherence and manage it moving forward. Workforce management is a great tool for this, but you first need to do it manually so you understand the process.
How are your skills in measuring real-time schedule adherence? If you can measure this metric, you’ll be in a position to overcome your adherence challenge, especially once you have workforce management tools in place.
Finally, you need to develop a strategy for improving schedule adherence. Believe it or not, you can and should do this before you select your workforce management solution. It provides a valuable guide for improving schedule adherence, as well as the features and capabilities you should demand in your workforce management solution.
Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMCnet and has also written for eastbiz.com. To read more of Susan’s articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Chris DiMarco