Keep the lines of communication open in an outsourced environment.
December 26 – Forecasting and scheduling in an outsourced environment takes strong coordination and open lines of communications. When calls are shared between an outsourcer and the client, the forecast must be done centrally for the total workload. At that point, a percentage of the load can be assumed for the outsourcer (with technology aligned […]
Use your ACD reporting system as your payroll time clock and find some of your “lost time.”
December 18 – If your agents arrive at work and clock in separately from logging in to their telephones, the amount of time in between the two logins can add up quickly. Some agents will proceed directly from the time clock to the telephone login and start taking calls immediately, while others will clock in […]
Create year-end WFM reports.
December 11 – In workforce management, we are very busy planning for the future. We gather data and create reports in order to conduct analysis to plan, plan, plan. What we sometime fail to do is reflect and take the time to assess all the great accomplishments within the workforce management team. The beginning of […]
Dealing with resistance to managing schedule adherence.
December 4 – Both in my role as the WFM leader in a large corporation with many call centers and as a consultant, I have seen a wide variety of approaches to managing agents’ adherence to schedule. Some call centers truly use a best practices methodology to assess the current performance, decide whether or […]
Dealing with resistance to managing schedule adherence.
November 27 – Both in my role as the WFM leader in a large corporation with many call centers and as a consultant, I have seen a wide variety of approaches to managing agents’ adherence to schedule. Some call centers truly use a best practices methodology to assess the current performance, decide whether or not […]
Do you know the value of one second of Average Handle Time (AHT)?
November 20 – Realistically, Workforce Planning professionals don’t always have the luxury of creating complete scenarios to weigh the costs and benefits of different suggestions, and the environment when that is most likely to happen is when ideas begin to be discussed/ evaluated in staff meetings. When the ideas and discussion are flowing too quickly […]
Centralize the non-core “stuff.”
November 13 – Does this sound familiar? You are responsible for Forecasting, Scheduling and Real-Time Management, but because your team is around after hours, you also hand out spare headsets when agents have a broken one, and sometimes you hand out paychecks after HR goes home. As a Workforce Planning professional and as a Consultant, […]
Setting an adherence goal for your call center.
November 6 – Each site should consider carefully what their adherence goal is for their agents and at what interval they will be measured (daily, weekly, or monthly). There is no one way of doing this nor is there a right or wrong answer, but only good or bad methodology in considering the goals and measurement […]
Take the SWPP Knowledge Assessment!
October 30 – In the last 15-20 years, contact center WFM staff have become in many cases more knowledgeable about how to push buttons in their tools than how to apply WFM theory. This is not good in that it prevents you from innovating solutions to problems. If you do not know why the buttons […]
Don’t forget the “What’s In It For Me” when deploying new software.
October 23 – Let’s face it – deploying a new software solution can be disruptive. Employees may not be motivated to embrace change by reading a top-down announcement that a new software tool is being deployed to help the company accomplish a goal. Instead, develop role-specific communications plans that address the needs of each set […]
Sharing the Progress of Workforce Planning!
October 16 – The daily performance of any Workforce Planning Group often has a broad impact throughout a Call Centre. As such, the daily progress of Workforce Planning cannot afford to operate in a bubble! It is important to show how staffing considerations and incoming call volumes are unfolding so that the whole Customer Care […]
Forecast constantly – and you’ll never be right all the time.
October 9 – One pet peeve of mine is the forecast accuracy metric for a WFM Team. Yes, it is reasonable to expect a WFM Team to forecast with relative accuracy, but relative is the key word. Forecasts can vary, and the inputs can be few, or extreme. So there are a few things you […]