Workforce Management

Call of Duty: Why Engaged Agents Stay in Contact Centres  One repeat challenge our consultants see when we partner with new organisations is Agent retention. With increasing customer expectations, hybrid working models, and AI-driven efficiencies reshaping the contact centre industry, there is always an ongoing pressure for organisations to keep agents engaged and motivated in their roles.    High attrition rates continue to plague contact centres, leading to increased recruitment costs, operational disruptions, and a decline in customer service quality.  Retaining...

In the early 2000s when automation first started gaining momentum, call centres businesses saw it as an opportunity to reduce costs and improve agent efficiency and less about improving customer experience. However, this business logic has changed over the years as businesses now deem customer experience as the most important reason for investing in call centre automation. The change of mindset has been a result of two megatrends that have reshaped the business world for good. Firstly the widespread adoption...

Workforce Management (WFM) solutions help contact centres with workforce planning in order to improve operating costs. The technology automates the process of forecasting and scheduling within contact centres to optimise the productivity of employees. Workforce Management (WFM) is a well-known call centre software solution, and is used by many. Why is Workforce Management important in a Contact Centre? Workforce Management plays a vital role in improving the level of service provided by a contact centre.  In order to hit service...

Across the industry there is an increased focus on employee engagement and the critical role staff play in the overall customer experience.  This is not a situation unique to contact centres but reflects a worldwide shift in all industries.   Within the contact centre world, the increased focus on employee engagement and productivity has led to the term Workforce Engagement Management (WEM) being more widely used.  WEM goes beyond traditional workforce management or workforce optimisation. It focuses on the human aspect of the contact centre to improve engagement, performance, and results.  In fact, Gartner, the research analyst took a decision to change its Magic Quadrant evaluation category...

These past few weeks have been promising. The pandemic lockdown restrictions have slowly started to lift. Shops (and soon even pubs) are gradually starting to re-open. Businesses are now also complying with a host of new workplace guidelines, designed to create safe workspaces for employees. According to GOV.UK, the main objective to these guidelines is to: ‘maintain social distancing wherever possible, on arrival and departure’. As more of us might start to make a gradual return to the office, contact centre...

With Contact Centres all over the globe still facing the reality of home working, real-time adherence functionality remains to be vital in order to protect service levels.   Managing today’s multi-channel contact centres from home could be easier than you think with a little forward planning and the right WFM technology. We all need to be flexible and agile with ‘on the go’ workforce planning. Real-time adherence will play an integral part of effective intraday management.  Challenges Many organisations are now set up for home working. Staff are set...

Challenges Contact Centres face during COVID-19 As the nation reacts to contain the virus, organisations need to be ready to adapt and do what is right for their staff, colleagues and customers, which includes ensuring remote contact centre agents are working efficiently. However, as organisations swiftly move to enable their staff to operate remotely, they are inevitably faced with a number of challenges: Providing customers with the right support: Ensuring customers can continue to reach the right agent on their...

In order to meet customer demands, workforce planners need to make sure they have the right number of agents with the right skill sets available at the right time. And this starts with having the right resource planning and workforce planning techniques in place. With customer contact channels increasing (email, web chat, SMS etc.), workforce scheduling and workforce planning has become a complex and labour-intensive job. Let’s not forget to throw into the mix variables such as absenteeism, holidays and...

It’s Christmas Season! Hurray! This means mulled wine, mince pies and festive holiday films. All happy stuff. But let’s not forget that the Christmas season for some, especially for contact centres depending on the industry they are in, can be a stressful time. Contact centres must often be ready to handle an influx of inbound customer requests, enquiries and purchases, ultimately affecting scheduling, workforce planning, service level expectations, staff morale and the customer experience. Let’s spare a thought for those...

Humanise the workplace series - Workforce Management (WFM) Gamification - Part 4 Ask any contact centre manager and they will agree that keeping their agents continually motivated, (in particular those with a longer tenure) throughout the year can be a challenge. This is why Gamification is now a key feature in a modern contact centre. These days, agents are dealing with surges in call volumes, changing technologies, increasingly complex customer cases across multiple channel touchpoints and last but not least,...

Humanise the workplace series - Workforce Management (WFM) shift Trader - Part 3 Agents will always be the most vital resource for your contact centre. As a contact centre manager it’s your job to boost employee satisfaction and retention, lower sickness and absenteeism rates and enhance customer service. The end result being improved profitability, a happier workforce and happier customers. To achieve this, contact centre managers invest in call centre software such as Workforce Management. Finding the right Workforce Management...

Disclaimer – the solution (solving contact centre employee retention) is not an easy fix and might even go against your instincts! We see it time and time again, Contact Centre Managers are constantly fighting the battle between meeting their service level agreements by having the right number of staff at the right time with the right skills, whilst also striving to retain their staff. Employee retention has been one of the biggest Contact Centre challenges for a long time, and...

Humanise the workplace series - Workforce Management (WFM) Vacation Planner - Part 2 Today’s contact centre is centred on profitability much as it is around customer service. But finding the right call centre software solution that supports these goals as well as keeping your agents happy can be a major challenge for many Contact Centre Managers, Team Leaders and Resource Planners! We understand that finding the right Workforce Management (WFM) Solution  which balances these 3 key areas is a must....

Humanise the workplace series - Workforce Management (WFM) MyTime Mobile App - Part 1 Employees today are looking for flexibility and availability to help meet their busy and complex lifestyle schedules. They want to be able to take control of their work patterns. As an organisation, these factors need to be considered particularly with the millennial generation, resulting in improved employee engagement and a reduction in agent and customer attrition. Call centre software such as Workforce Management (WFM) can help...

Magnus Geverts at Calabrio Teleopti  - 10 ways to create and maintain a positive culture in contact centers Working in a contact centre is a constant challenge.  While the introduction of self-service and automation has removed many of the simple, repetitive tasks from the frontline, the remaining enquiries are increasingly complex, requiring greater skills, patience and knowledge. At the same time, mobility and the Internet of Things mean customers want an immediate response and expect to interact using a variety...

Is your Workforce Management software still fit for purpose?  If your WFM solution is up for renewal, stop and think if it’s really working for you. Although the initial cost of implementing a workforce management solution may appear large, a quick return on investment can be achieved by not only significantly reducing the amount of time spent creating forecasts, schedules, workforce planning, and reporting, but also by being able to create accurate forecasts that ensure you have the “right person,...

Are you considering implementing a Workforce Management solution? Do you have a number of questions that need to be answered first? With a wealth of WFM experience under our belt, we address the most frequently asked questions when it comes to Workforce Management technology. Do I need Workforce Management? Depending on the size of the contact centre, setting up schedules can be far too complex to be handled in a simple spreadsheet, and this is where Workforce Management, with advanced...

Contact Centre Managers face a real challenge when trying to reduce cost in the contact centre.  Maximising each and every customer interaction as well as keeping the day to day operation of the contact centre running, requires an almost genius balance of workforce planning, productivity, quality and efficiency in every day processes. So here are our top 4 ways technologies help contact centres reduce cost without compromising on quality: 1) Workforce Management Workforce Management (WFM) enables workforce planners to automate the...

Winter is here, and with it comes a group eager to devour all that may lie in their path. Luckily, it’s not the white walkers from the hit show Game of Thrones, but a whole other type of army – shoppers waiting to grab the latest bargains in the lead up to the festive season. Black Friday takes place this year on November 24th and if it’s anything like 2016 which saw an estimated spend of 2.9 billion* (with savvy...

It is no secret that as a contact centre manager you have to be an expert at doing more with less and prioritising your goals as you go along. This usually means keeping your main focus on front office performance and excellent customer service. However, more often than not this can leave the back office, a vital branch of the operational family, at a disadvantage. Fortunately, the same workforce management (WFM) solution which helps keep your front line in check...

As business environments become more competitive, the importance of Gamification and team performance for organisational success increases significantly. NICE Performance Management provides a single source of truth for employee performance data and goals.  In addition, it provides targeted coaching and gamification to motivate the right action. Contact centre gamification is the implementation of game like mechanics in order to influence behaviour and activities. It is used to motivate and engage employees. Contact centre representatives are encouraged to complete objectives and...

Cloud versus on premise. That familiar on-going battle. As a contact centre professional, which one do you choose, particularly when scoping out your requirements for a Workforce Management solution? In a nutshell, there a number of benefits a cloud workforce management solution can deliver in comparison to an on premise. On the other hand, an on-premise solution is more suitable for those complex and tricky installations, allowing you to customise as you see fit. Both deployments come equipped with their...

Business Systems’ partner, Teleopti, has achieved the highest ratings for customer satisfaction in the 2017 WFM Product and Market Report by DMG Consulting LLC. This is the 3rd year in a row that Teleopti WFM has been named a top Workforce Management provider by the analyst firm, consistently receiving high scores from satisfied customers. The report closely examines eight contending vendors, exploring the capabilities of their WFM suites. In addition to DMG’s review of vendors and the WFM landscape for...

It is no secret that as consumers we want to communicate with a brand when we want, however we want, making the multi-channel contact centre a very popular theme. In fact, most of us use two or more channels, top of which are the website (85%), phone (75%), email (65%) and live chat (58%). Despite this, a recent study found that 58% of retailers provide different answers to the same question across multiple channels. This is not a surprise as...

louis vuitton outlet stores The ways that customers communicate with the companies with which they do business has changed dramatically in the last decade. The challenge for contact centre management, therefore, is to bring together employees, customers and business goals and run the contact centre in an efficient, productive, engaging, value-adding and profitable way to satisfy all elements of the equation. One of the most important steps to balancing this equation is workforce management (WFM) software, designed to help balance...

Workforce management (WFM) technology has developed alongside the contact centre, coming a long way from the single-channel scheduling tool it once was.Like any tool, however, if not used correctly, it can become more of a burden than a saviour. Here are 5 common mistakes made when scheduling with a workforce management tool and how to avoid them in order to meet targets with less effort, achieve efficient workforce planning and obtain a faster return on investment. The rest of this...

In 2015, our article ‘3 Ways Workforce Management (WFM) can Improve Policing Efficiency’ we touched on how scheduling, forecasting and real time adherence can help the police force improve quality of service and workforce planning, by increasing both resource efficiency and availability whilst reducing unnecessary expenditures. Following on comments and conversations initiated by this article, another important factor emerged. Maintaining employee morale and providing sufficient learning and development opportunities, was highlighted by police workforce planners as one of the key challenges...

[Updated Dec 2019]Contact Centre Managers can face a real challenge when it comes to them trying to reduce cost in the contact centre. To make the most out of every customer interaction requires a balance of productivity, quality and efficiency in day to day operations. Here are our top 5 technologies that can help reduce cost in the contact centre without compromising quality in 2020: 1. Reduce Cost in the Contact Centre with Workforce Management Workforce Management (WFM) technology allows...

Dave Evans, Workforce Management Consultant at Business Systems (UK) Ltd, discusses 3 emerging trends to watch out for in workforce management (WFM) technology. A quick re-cap on emerging WFM trends is below: 1. WFM Improvements in WFM web-based Portals We will continue to see advances in WFM web-based portals – These will be available for employees as well as schedulers, to give true mobile workforce optimisation. Availability such as WFM shift trading and booking holidays will be available through this...

This year we have teamed up with The Forum to find out how far contact centres have come in incorporating Workforce Management (WFM) into their workforce planning operation and into their employee empowerment programmes. Are contact centres ready to accommodate their employees’ changing lifestyles and preferences to improve engagement and loyalty, and empower them towards driving performance and formulating customer experiences? We gathered these results and have released our latest survey report - The State of Workforce Management (WFM) in...

Reduce attrition rates with Workforce Management (WFM) It’s simple - implementing the right call centre software solution such as a workforce management (WFM) system, which comes equipped with self-service functionalities can reduce absenteeism and reduce attrition offering your workforce a greater interest in what they do and a more flexible life style to meet their schedules. Some of the self-service functionalities which are available within WFM include: Workforce Management: Holiday Planner This functionality automates the time off request process, with...

Workforce Management (WFM) self-service and engagement capabilities are key functionalities within Workforce Management technology. It allows employees to view schedules, request absences, view their own performance and self-schedule through preference and availability options. A WFM employee portal provides an organisation with a fantastic opportunity, not only to engage their employees but to also help reduce the management overhead of dealing with workforce planning requests and reporting. As part of the engagement toolkit, the employee portal enables the employee to take...

Workforce Management (WFM) technology has come a long way from the niche, single channel workforce planning and scheduling tool it once was, to the cloud based and cohesive solution offering we have today. The contact centre technology has developed in parallel with the evolution of the contact centre and is still seen as one of the driving tools to utilise in this environment. It has unfailingly enabled organisations to plan and schedule efficiently through workforce planning and resource planning functionality,...

On the 12th of May we held a joint webinar with Call Centre Helper discussing the best ways to introduce and maintain agent empowerment. One thing that was emphasized by all panellists was that to achieve employee empowerment an organisation needs processes, technology and leadership.