Workforce Management Featured Article
Why Third Party Workforce Management Makes Sense
How do you manage those who are responsible for helping you achieve your goals? In the contact center, it’s not uncommon to have workforce management goals in place, yet lack the tools and strategy necessary to achieve those goals. You still have to forecast, schedule, manage exceptions, motivate team members…the list goes on and on.
If you don’t believe you have enough time in the day to make all of these happen successfully, you’re likely still relying on manual processes that you complete yourself. A recent report out by Contact Babel suggests the right move to streamline processes and achieve the desired level of success in workforce management is to bring in a third party.
Consider the pressure put on you and your team for schedule adherence. You have to be able to compare forecasts with reality and learn from any mistakes made. Third party options enable you to do this automatically, consistently improving the process. With real-time adherence monitoring, you can easily see what is happening or be alerted to deviations from expected activity and make changes before problems occur.
When you have the ability to access information through a Web browser or even your smartphone, you can easily make dynamic changes. Such access and the ability to quickly react has provided a new level of sophistication to workforce management. The bigger focus is on performance and driving the results needed without spending all of your time on scheduling and execution.
The key to effectively implementing a third party workforce management solution is to look for one that is easy to navigate and use, yet still offers the functionality and power you need to understand how activities are impacting outcomes and make changes quickly as necessary. With access to historical data and real-time activity, you’re better prepared to make the right decision and throw out the manual processes.
For those organizations that have adopted workforce management from third parties, the majority tend to rely on reporting and forecasting capabilities the most. Close behind in priority is the use of real-time adherence within larger contact centers. The larger operation is much more likely to make use of the detailed and optimized scheduling functionality as well, while back office options are also available.
To ensure successful implementation and use of the third party workforce management solution, you need to understand your current processes and where efficiency opportunities exist. You’re then better prepared to right-fit a solution that will produce the outcomes you need to justify the investment in the first place. Just be sure you have the right training in place so the new solution can deliver on the intended promise.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi