2013 Tip of the Week Archive2018-05-09T13:43:27-04:00

Followup ideas to improve intraday management.

September 16 – Last week’s tip on Schedule Change Policy from Sutirtha Basu of Convergys prompted this tip to build on those ideas. It is not uncommon wherein actual intraday events deviate from plan or forecast and results in contact centers needing more or less people than planned. This results in solicitations of volunteers for […]

Create centralized WFM policy & procedures.

September 2 –  Do you have a centralized location to store and access documented Workforce policies and procedures, or are they all stored in email communications? Do you have documents to assist new members of the Workforce Team with their training, or are you following the “old tribal method?” Creating and storing Workforce policy and […]

Integrate WFM into your new hire training program.

August 26 – How closely is workforce management aligned with learning and development? When you have new hires, are they introduced to workforce management early on? Do trainees receive feedback on their adherence to their schedule? While you may not count your trainees in your normal reporting, it is important that trainees understand early on […]

Tips from an outsourcer.

August 19 – Editors Note:  The following tip is from an outsource provider and provides useful calculations related to staffing for hire situations. All readers may find it useful whether they are outsourcers or end users who use outsourced solutions for call handling. What is Billing Yield? — Percentage of Agent worked time excluding training […]

How do you grant time off in your center?

August 12 – All your agents need and want time off.  But think carefully about how you go about granting that time off. Are you granting time off based on staffing, budgeting, or just to be a “nice guy?”  A word of caution:  use your budgeted numbers as the base factor for allowing time off.  […]

Listen to your vendors when implementing a new tool.

  August 5 – Rather than automatically requiring a workforce management vendor and software tool to adapt to the way you’ve always done things, let the vendor tell you what is recommended. These vendors have hundreds of installations in call centers of every type and size and they may actually have seen better ways! While you […]

Allow time to innovate.

July 29 – Did you know that engineers at Google get paid part of their time to just think?  They ponder on new things, new ideas, ways to do things that make products and services better. In fact this is where a good number of products have come from that Google offers.  If it works […]

Create a Workforce Management Committee.

   July 22  – Getting everyone onboard with Workforce Management can be incredibly difficult.  Implementing Workforce Management software is the easy part, while getting everyone onboard with using it and using it consistently is much more difficult.  One way to increase acceptance and to drive long term continuous improvement is to create a Workforce Management […]

Adjust your staffing plan throughout the year.

July 15 – We’re midway through 2013.  Have you updated your staffing plan for the year? As you go through the year, be sure to adjust your plan and staffing needs to reflect the current reality since the original plan prepared last year might not be meeting the needs of your business.  Continual “reality checks” […]

Outbound Scheduling requires a different approach.

July 8 –  Outbound forecasting and scheduling requires an entirely different approach when compared to inbound. For inbound contacts, people are scheduled to be available to handle contacts at their expected time of arrival and forecasted volume. Taking the same approach for outbound will result in a sub-optimal loop that will imply that you make […]

Creative ways to improve agent engagement.

July 1 – Anyone who works in a contact center knows about the challenge of agent engagement. Agents can quickly become disengaged with such a heavy focus on scorecards and performance. In addition, difficulty getting approved for time off can be discouraging. And, of course, answering phone calls all day can be a monotonous task. […]

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