What Is A Workforce Management Contact Center?

The Essential Role of Workforce Management in Optimizing Contact Center Operations

What Is A Workforce Management Contact Center

Workforce Management: A Strategic Approach to Contact Center Operations

Every successful operation of a contact center are the individuals who are responsible for this success, people who are highly enthusiastic, motivated, rewarding and trained to manage the operation extremely.

It’s evident that effective worker management in the contact center is essential to optimize the efficiency for contact centers. But how do we achieve this?

This guide will give you a complete picture of what is a workforce management contact center workforce , and why it’s crucial, and provide practical tips on how to implement these strategies to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of your company.

Table of Contents

What Is A Workforce Management Contact Center?

What Is A Workforce Management Contact Center? Contact center management for the workforce is the method to increase the productivity of employees through activities such as forecasting demand, managing teams effectively, scheduling them efficiently, the daily performance of employees and planning for the future. It requires tools and strategies that allow managers to ensure that the workforce is in line with the needs of the company, making sure that customer questions are addressed efficiently and effectively.

The Key Components of Call Center Workforce Management

These are the elements of a workplace management cycle:

Forecasting

Variations in call volume whether they’re anticipated (such as the time you’ve launched your promotional campaign) or unavoidable (like the result of a system malfunction) is commonplace for call centers. If you’re not able to have sufficient staff to handle the increasing calls, it could result in longer wait times for incoming customers, which can be the most frustrating experience for callers. According to a Software Advice study, waiting for even a single minute can be a hassle for more than 60% of customers. In contrast, excessive staffing can result in poor utilization of resources, lower morale of employees, lower motivation and higher operating cost.

Accurate forecasting can help contact center managers predict the number of calls they receive, their workload, and staffing requirements so that they can prepare for the future. Here are a few things to consider:

  • Historical data, trends, and patterns
  • Upcoming holidays or special events
  • New product or service launches or updates
  • Upcoming promo campaigns
  • Equipment or service failures due to weather conditions

Agent Scheduling

Once you’ve predicted the demand for the future it is time to design schedules for agents taking into consideration expected spikes in volume of calls and times of low demand. This will prevent either overstaffing or understaffing. e.g. when you’ve just launched an innovative product, you might need to add more reps in order to handle the higher calls since your team will likely receive more calls from customers.

If you run remote call centers and make use of a virtual call center platform for managing your remote employees and staff, you could certainly allow more flexibility in scheduling. If the scheduling of agents is handled correctly you’ll be able to manage customer inquiries efficiently and quickly, keep high levels of customer service and satisfaction and improve the efficiency of your costs.

While scheduling can be completed by hand, employing a workforce management software and automatizing a portion of the process will help you save time and energy.

Assigning Agents

Once you’ve scheduled shifts for agents according to your projected demand, you must assign reps to shifts the way that helps to maximize efficiency and performance of agents while making sure that you avoid burnout and excessive workload. When assigning employees to shifts be sure to take into account the agents’ experiences as well as their expertise and soft abilities. Additionally you should also consider the agent’s shift preferences. This will assist them to maintain a healthier life balance as well as maintain high levels of productivity.

Intraday Management

Despite careful preparation, things may not happen as planned. There could be an unexpected rise in call volume due to external factors that are beyond your control or workforce shortages due to poor adherence to schedules or absenteeism, all of which could affect your team’s ability to keep the level of service. This is why intraday administration is essential in the management of workforces in call centers.

Through continuous monitoring of real-time data it is possible to make prompt adjustments to the schedules of agents and assign more staff to handle higher demand than you anticipated to ensure that your service standards are met and there are enough employees to handle an increase in demand without overloading your team.

Performance Management

Performance management is a crucial aspect of WFM. By tracking regularly KPIs and metrics such as Average Handle Times (AHA) and first Call Resolution (FCR) rates and scheduling adherence, occupancy rates as well as shrinkage percentages, among other metrics, you can evaluate the performance of your employees and the effectiveness of your call center’s operations. Additionally by analyzing this data you will be able to identify areas for improvement and make information-driven decisions to make better planning and schedule.

The Benefits of Contact Center Workforce Management

Strategies for managing workforces in contact centers and technology provide a myriad of benefits for organizations. They can help set up the contact center, but also give business executives the necessary tools that can help them grow. The best strategy and software could:

  • Simplify scheduling: WFM software incorporating AI as well as automation capabilities could simplify scheduling. They can create optimal schedules in a matter of minutes, taking the availability of agents, calls volume, business requirements and possible interruptions.

  • Ensure adherence: WFM solutions don’t only ensure that you have the right amount of agents on hand. They also make sure that you assign the right agents to the right tasks and channels, and also help to monitor their compliance with SOPs, compliance requirements, and many more.
Benefits of Call Center Workforce Management
  • Improve training: Enhance training with the help of WFM technology can inform managers and business leaders which contact center employees require additional assistance. The tracking of KPIs like first-time resolution rates can help to figure out which teams require additional training.

  • Enhance agent experience: Workforce management tools can help ensure that you don’t overwhelm employees with a complicated schedule while not taking full advantage of other options. This can improve the experience of agents.

  • Optimize customer experience: Enhance customer experience by making sure you have the proper amount of agents in every channel results in better resolution rates on first calls and shorter waiting times and higher levels of satisfaction, enhancing your ability to be competitive in the CX environment.

  • Reduce labor costs: Reduce the cost of labor as in addition to reducing the possibility of staffing shortages, WFM solutions can help to avoid overstaffing, making sure your company doesn’t incur costs in a way that isn’t needed. It will help you determine the structure of your team that you require to achieve your CX objectives.

Top Tools for Contact Center Workforce Management

A variety of tools are available to assist businesses in managing their contact centers from forecasting to scheduling and and receiving calls via various channels. These include contact center software including analytics tools for the contact center, reporting tools as well as the tools to schedule employees.

Contact center analytics and reporting tools:

  • These tools can help you identify patterns that you can use to develop strategies that will improve agent performance and the customer experience. They process unstructured information from various data sources and look at trends in the past to provide the best possible predictions for your plans. They also provide real-time information of your contact center's operations in order to allow you to make tactical decisions to improve the efficiency of your workflow processes and improve the efficiency of your team.

Employee scheduling:

  • Employee scheduling software is vital for businesses that operate on shifts, like contact centers. They look at availability of agents as well as contact center operations needs to develop schedules and assign employees to schedules. Employee scheduling software monitors shift availability and costs of labor, allows shift swaps and provides overtime alerts to help optimize shifts and stop redundancies and overloaded agents during the daytime tasks.

Contact center software:

  • Contact center software provides AI-assisted solutions that make contact center's work easy and seamless. It's suitable to track customer interaction and knowledge base access ticket management calls, call routing, and call reports. Contact center software and especially when you utilize cloud VoIP or hosted VoIP, which do not require traditional phone lines, you will be able to receive omnichannel support in your contact center. You can respond to customers via tickets, email live chat, voice calls, and video conferencing with no anxiety.

Contact Center Workforce Management Best Practices

Use these suggestions to empower your employees and ensure success for your organization:

  1. Promote a Positive Work Culture
    If employees feel appreciated They are more inclined to stick to their schedules and be engaged in their job. The feeling of gratitude can be derived from a variety of sources, like recognition from supervisors or encouragement for professional development as well as advancement in the business.

  2. Offer Schedule Flexibility
    It’s crucial to offer your employees the flexibility to work from home to allow them to better manage their work and personal lives. This will not only increase their satisfaction at work, but also improves their efficiency.

  3. Train in Cross-Functional Skills
    The training of your employees in various areas helps them handle various concerns. It can be extremely beneficial in times of high demand or when there’s not enough staff.

  4. Consider Availability
    Be aware that your employees may not be available for calls because of breaks and meetings, training or other reasons. In the absence of this, you may be in a bind and your staff feeling overwhelmed.

  5. Plan Activities for Low-Volume Periods
    You can plan out activities ahead of time to keep your employees interested and motivated in less hectic time. You can promote professional development opportunities like taking part in webinars, or reading relevant professional reports.

  6. Use Real-time Analysis
    Monitoring your employees’ availability as well as the volume of calls allows you to quickly modify schedules and assignments to reduce wait times as well as abandoned calls.

Frequently Asked Questions

Workforce Management (WFM) involves planning, forecasting, and scheduling and monitoring the activities of employees to ensure that the organization has the appropriate number of employees with the appropriate capabilities at the right time to achieve its objectives.

In a call center the role of managing staff is to forecast call volume making schedules for employees and monitoring performance in real-time and making adjustments to the schedules according to the highest quality of service.

An example of management of the workforce is a store that uses software to predict the peak shopping times and schedule employees according to the need for coverage during peak times.

The primary responsibility is to ensure that staffing levels are in balance in line with the workload demands, and ensure effective operations, cost management and quality of service through managing schedules of employees as well as attendance and productivity.

For Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), WFM concentrates on scheduling and tracking agents’ performance to meet clients’ needs, maximizing staff resources and reducing wait times while ensuring quality standards.

The compensation for professionals who manage workforces in call centers is contingent on experience and the location and experience, but typically can range from $40,000 to $70,000 annually across the U.S., with higher salary for those in senior or specialist jobs.

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