Three questions that help define contact center workload.
July 14 – One of the tenets of running an effective contact center is that you forecast and manage the totality of the center’s workload. Even in organizations that do a good job of handling primary contact channels, we too often find subsets of work that are unexpected, ill-defined, or not reflected in plans and […]
Automate overtime and early departure.
July 7 – The average service operation is a change machine. Put in strategy, and out comes change. Of course, the average WFM professional could spend their day dealing with all the tactical actions that are spit out. That is exactly why you need to automate simple, repetitive tasks – to free yourself to focus […]
Explaining workforce shrinkage to management.
June 30 – Having difficulty explaining to the CFO why you need 84 staff on the payroll when you only require 56 people on the phones? “If we are paying them to be phone reps, then why aren’t they on the phones?” is the common question coming down from senior management. Here’s an approach we’ve […]
Are you calculating workforce shrinkage accurately?
June 23 – Many call centers often underestimate the percentage of workforce time that goes into “other” activities – breaks, meetings, off-phone work, etc. Shrinkage is defined as the percentage of time for which agents are paid that they are unavailable to handle calls. Make sure you have clearly identified all the categories that take […]
Weigh the costs and benefits of team scheduling before implementation.
June 16 – Team scheduling calls for a number of agents (usually 10 or more) that report to the same supervisor, to be assigned to identical schedules. While there are many benefits of the team scheduling concept, you also need to be aware of the costs. More… There are many benefits of having everybody showing […]
Treat Your Outsourced Sites like Internal Sites
June 9 – Does your contact center depend on outsourced sites to meet your goals? If so, you need to give your outsourcers the same attention as your internal sites. For example, consider how to best manage intraday change with your outsourcer: Review results for each interval and address service level declines early Establish daily […]
Practice call avoidance behaviors with WFM support.
June 2 – Working in a global environment can be very challenging in today’s contact centers. Workforce management teams are occupying different time zones spanning multiple countries. Each country has its own rules and holidays, operating hours and support needs. Many support organizations operate out of a single time zone, making cross communication a […]
Create a formal action plan for call volume drivers.
May 26 – Have you ever noticed how the more experienced members of a Workforce Planning team seem to know intuitively when certain combinations of events are signals of problems in the contact center? Why not put some structure around those gut feelings and use it to help the entire team? More… To help identify […]
What’s the POINT of Schedule Preferences?
May 19 – Companies need a way to maintain consistent staffing levels, but also give employees flexibility in scheduling. This balance can be difficult to get right. That’s why more companies are turning to simple points-based approaches to capture employee preferences. In a points-based system, the organization sets a points “quota” for every employee. Then […]
Blog post from the SWPP Annual Conference – part 2.
May 12 – SWPP member Tiffany LaReau of Human Numbers wrote a blog about her experience at the SWPP Annual Conference a few weeks ago in Nashville. It was such a great piece that we wanted to share it with you. If you weren’t able to join us for the conference, Tiffany gives you a […]
Blog post from the SWPP Annual Conference.
May 5 – SWPP member Tiffany LaReau of Human Numbers wrote a blog about her experience at the SWPP Annual Conference a few weeks ago in Nashville. It was such a great piece that we wanted to share it with you over the next two weeks. If you weren’t able to join us for the […]
Measure productivity using Manageable Shrinkage.
April 28 – In a call center environment, productivity metrics usually range from schedule adherence, online compliance, and manned time. As we expect more from our employee’s through increased productivity and revenue generating activities, there is an additional metric that can measure productivity and also suffice as a financial metric. This metric is called “Manageable […]