2019 Tip of the Week Archive2019-01-14T12:50:07-05:00

History May Not Repeat Itself

December 30 – ‘Tis the season – the seasonal forecast, that is! It is that time of year where our forecasts are critical to both our business and our agents; we need to be there when our customers need us; but we also want our agents to have the ability to spend time with their […]

Understand all facets of your business. 

December 23 – Invest time to understand the business beyond the world of WFM. Make it a requirement for your team to listen to calls (live or remote), meet with supervisors on a regular cadence to understand challenges, and sit in on team huddles to hear more about the agent’s perspective. A strong WFM team […]

Why don’t they understand??? 

December 16 – Many times I hear WFM clients talk about how Operations, Marketing, Finance and other Leaders don’t understand what WE need and how they are doing things that make it hard on us.  It really does make this a frustrating process. I am reminded of what Steven Covey said in his “Seven Habits of Highly […]

Why don’t they understand??? 

December 16 – Many times I hear WFM clients talk about how Operations, Marketing, Finance and other Leaders don’t understand what WE need and how they are doing things that make it hard on us.  It really does make this a frustrating process. I am reminded of what Steven Covey said in his “Seven Habits of Highly […]

Keep your Real-Time team fresh! 

December 9 – For most of our contact centers, real-time adherence (RTA) is one of the busiest and most difficult jobs there is. Staring at readerboards, agent statuses, chat inboxes, ticketing systems, and managing service levels all day can be a very daunting task. Why not help them break up the day a little bit? […]

Explaining WFM to 4th Graders. 

December 2 – Recently I was asked to speak about my job to 4th graders.  I tried to think of how to explain this to kids when many adults don’t exactly understand what I do or what workforce management means.  I decided to do a power of one presentation with a twist. I brought some play […]

Make sure to document and adjust data for system disruptions.

November 25 – One of the key tasks of a workforce planner is creating an accurate call volume forecast to ensure proper staffing. One item which can be a nightmare in your contact center is system disruptions, which can prevent your agents from doing their jobs. However, when system access is not available for inquiry […]

Look at schedule adherence from a historical perspective.

November 18 – Schedule adherence has always been a challenge for workforce management teams to calculate, document, and seamlessly disposition time associated with “out of compliance time.”  The primary schedule compliance efforts have centered upon real-time adherence:  “Where is Bob, and why is he not taking calls?”  This is an important function and has a […]

How can you make sure Remote Agents are working?

November 11 – Many of us either have remote agents or are considering adding some to our agent community. Inevitably as we discuss remote agents, this one question will surely come up: “But how can we make sure they are working!?” There is concern that if we can’t physically see someone then we can’t confirm […]

Get a handle on your “True Shrinkage.”

November 4 – Whether you’re in a small or large contact center, it’s critical to get a good read on what your “true” shrinkage is when it comes to forecasting and real-time management.  Just using an “average” shrinkage factor can significantly alter your ability to staff appropriately at various days, weeks or months.  Forecasted work […]

Accentuate the positive! 

October 28 – When explaining Power of One concepts to frontline staff, try to accentuate the positive and not the negative. Staffing and service tradeoffs are often explained in the sense of how much worse service will be and how high occupancy will be when one agent is not in place as planned.  Instead of […]

Don’t forget to investigate attrition in your center.

October 21 – Attrition is a crucial measurement to managers interested in keeping costs down and customer satisfaction high.  Customer satisfaction suffers when a steady stream of inexperienced CSRs handle calls, and the cost of replacing an agent can approach 150 percent of the employee’s annual salary.  Other costs associated with attrition take the form […]

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