Your Call Center Workforce Management Software Basics

A contact center’s overall goal is to have a profitable and productive workforce.

Implementing a Workforce Management (WFM) program into your contact center helps your organization achieve and maintain operational efficiency. It’s surprising how having a broader understanding of your call center’s needs can reveal insights that help take you to the next level.

Forecasting

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could see into the future and know exactly how things will play out and what your organization will need? Using a WFM system allows you to forecast your call center’s requirements so you can plan accordingly. A basic WFM system helps you predict how your business will develop and what your staffing needs will be as a result.

Forecasting your short, medium, and long term staffing requirements is done by using previous data. In this case, the advice to “learn from your past” can be taken quite literally. Analyzing and reviewing patterns of call influx can allow you to forecast what you will need ahead of time.

A modern WFM system is capable of providing you with automatically generated forecasts and automated staffing requirements. The feature is also self-learning, meaning the forecast accuracy will continue to increase over time. Utilizing the features of WFM can result in lowering costs, increasing efficiency, and overall smoother operations.

Scheduling

The scheduling features of a Workforce Management system work hand-in-hand with forecasting. The main objective of staff scheduling is to coordinate and meet your organization’s needs — ensuring that there are enough agents working during the busy forecasted times. A WFM software automates the process of creating agent schedules to best match your call center’s supply and demand.

Utilizing the system’s abilities helps minimize under and overstaffing in your contact center — ultimately creating a better experience for everyone. Environments can be tense and agents get stressed when there are not enough employees to handle a high call volume. When more employees are scheduled than needed, you are simply wasting their time and your money.

Not only does a WFM system make sure you have the right amount of agents, but it also takes into account each agents’ skills and proficiency. This skills-based routing allows your call center to be equipped with skilled agents to maximize performance.

How WFM Benefits Everyone

A Workforce Management software helps create a better flow and work environment not only on the operational side, but for the agents as well.

Benefits for your contact center team:

• Agents don’t get run down. Being assigned to tasks that match their skills and capabilities help agents stay motivated and less stressed.
• Agents are treated fairly. With the scheduling features equally distributing the popular and less popular working times, nobody gets favored or feels like they got the short end of the stick.
• Agents can increase productivity. Skill-based routing your calls to specific agents keeps employees active with tasks they are proficient in handling.

Benefits for the operational manager:

• Increased efficiency. WFM allows your contact center to pinpoint areas for improvement and utilize employees more efficiently.
• Eliminate extra costs. Cutting down the number of scheduled agents during slower times helps your call center get the most out of its resources.
• Make faster and better decisions. WFM software gives you access to real-time KPIs and metrics that help you know what your contact center needs.

Don’t Settle for a Spreadsheet

You might think to yourself, “I’m capable of knowing what my organization will need and scheduling my agents.” You are not wrong, however, there are numerous things to manage on a daily basis. Implementing a Workforce Management system in your contact center takes care of basic needs and allows you to spend your valuable time on other tasks. Spreadsheets can get messy and confusing over time, and when it comes to maintaining efficiency and satisfaction, you do not want to be taking chances.

There is a lot that goes into creating and maintaining a profitable workforce. Taking advantage of WFM can ease the weight off your back and help your contact center exceed expectations.

Download the feature guide to see how TCN’s features work for you.