For over a year, we’ve been noodling how we’ll use AI in WFM and contact centers. Much of it because, simply, AI is shifting every day. We’ve landed on a spot—using AI to help make the planning process easier and using it to make our analyses more complete.
We’re in an interesting moment. AI is new, and nobody has really figured out how to use it in WFM and planning just yet. We’ve been building a framework that actually works with real contact‑center math.
In the last SWPP On Target newsletter, we published an article which was an interview with Mackey, our planning system’s AI “co-pilot.” He is truly fun to work with. But he also encapsulates the way we have decided to use AI in workforce planning—we will use Mackey just as we have used contact center algorithms, to help us make better decisions. The Capacity Planning Modeling problem has always been about helping people make better decisions and AI doesn’t change that.
There are several ways Mackey and AI in general can help us run a more efficient contact center.
There is one big caveat—our research shows that leaning on AI to develop answers on its own is fraught with problems. You cannot go out to the web and grab a generic workforce algorithm and expect it to be accurate in your specific contact center. At least not yet.
It is important that under the skin, behind the AI, is a proven model and system that is usable without the AI.
Note: This week’s tip is provided by Ric Kosiba of Real Numbers. Ric is a co-founder of Real Numbers, a contact center strategic planning software company. Ric can be reached at ric@realnumbers.com. Follow Ric on LinkedIn! (www.linkedin.com/in/ric-kosiba/)
