Workforce Management Featured Article
How Can Workforce Management Improve Performance?
How does your contact center flow on a daily basis? Do your agents show up on time? Are they ready for the work day when they arrive? Do they know what is expected of them whether the phones are ringing or not?
Chances are if you have agents that aren’t living up to these expectations, they likely won’t continue to work for you. Attrition is known to be high in the contact center space as managers expect a lot from their staff and a failure to deliver could encourage some to look for a new career choice.
This is especially true if actions are affecting the customer experience. But how do you measure each interaction in the standard contact center environment? Even if agents are doing everything as expected, is customer perception of the experience high enough to meet expectations?
Putting a workforce management solution in place to properly manage the time and activities of your workforce is a great first step in the right direction to ensure you achieve the desired outcomes. But to reach a higher level of customer satisfaction, you have to put a clear strategy in place, execute on that strategy, measure outcomes and then adjust as needed.
Monet Software recently posted a blog on some of the top key performance indicators (KPIs) that should be tracked in the contact center environment if improved outcomes are the ultimate goal. Let’s take a look at their suggestions and how they could apply in your environment with positive results.
AHT – also known as Average Handle Time, AHT is something tracked regularly in nearly every contact center. Management needs to know how long it takes to satisfy the average customer so that workforce management schedules according to this metric. This time not only includes the live call, but also any work that must be done on the account once the call is finished to ensure the issue is completely resolved.
Calls per Hour – every contact center manager would love to see their agents handle as many calls as possible per hour. After all, the more calls an agent can handle, the less cost per call and the fewer agents needed on the floor at any given time. Still, the outcome of the calls must be managed to ensure satisfaction levels are met and maintained.
First Call Resolution – the more “one and done” calls the contact center receives, the better the performance outcomes and the lower the cost of operation. Workforce management focused on scheduling is much easier to complete when forecasts are based on new calls and not old issues.
Abandoned Calls – these are more likely to occur when workforce management practices are inaccurate and there aren’t enough agents to handle the incoming calls.
Average Wait Time – when it gets too long, it signals another failure in the workforce management practices or a failure in the call handling capabilities of the agent. Both must be investigated for changes.
Schedule Adherence – believe it or not, your contact center schedule is only as effective as the percentage of agents following it to the letter. As soon as agents are doing things that aren’t related to the schedule, performance drops off and the cost of calls starts to increase.
Other metrics also speak to performance and contact center managers hoping for better outcomes can look to workforce management as a tool to improve these areas. It isn’t magic and won’t work without clear strategies, execution, measurement and enforcement, but when the right mix is applied, the outcomes are significant.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi