Workforce Management Featured Article
Monet Provides the Link between Social Customer Support and Workforce Management
As help desks and customer support centers are expected to ramp up the quality of service they provide to customers – in part because of customer expectations – many are struggling to keep up due to the limitations with their existing technology. Poorly integrated channels, legacy equipment, multiple databases and a lack of internal communications are all standing in the way of a great customer experience. It doesn’t matter how many great and talented employees you have if the tools are sub-par and the processes are slow and outdated.
Larger help desks in particular manage an enormous number of support tickets, and the call traffic isn’t always predictable. It’s critical to always have the right number of agents at the right time, engaged in the right task. Traditional scheduling solutions simply cannot keep up, particularly when they are created manually.
“Even with accurate schedules in place, helpdesks often operate with limited visibility into general activity, leaving managers uncertain whether adherence levels are being met and cases are being handled efficiently,” according to Chuck Ciarlo, CEO of workforce optimization solutions provider Monet Software (News - Alert). “This is because most WFM systems are integrated only to the ACD, not to the case management tool.”
Today, a large number of customer support organizations are using Salesforce Service Cloud, a social customer service application built on a SaaS (News - Alert) model that was designed to empower companies to manage all customer information and service transactions. Using the solution, organizations can support customers wherever they are — phone, email, social media, apps, or any other channel. Because of the complexity of the customer relationship today, however, it’s critical that this work be managed and allocated properly.
Monet’s recently introduced Workforce Management for Salesforce Service Cloud can provide assistance to help desks wishing to optimize their internal organization and scheduling processes, while increasing customer satisfaction, customer experience and service levels. It’s an optimal tool for service desks wishing to improve their customer experience while at the same time increasing efficiencies. It can close the gap between workforce management and the case management system, and do it easily and securely thanks to the true cloud-based delivery, which minimizes or eliminates upfront costs as well as the need for robust on-site IT staff.
For busy help desks or customer support centers where adherence is a regular problem, the two integrated solutions can help managers compare planned agent activity to actual activities throughout the day, as well as real-time views of forecasted and actual call volumes, handle times and other key performance indicators. Intraday management, exception planning, forecasting and scheduling become easy, and robust reporting performance analysis reports and analyzes all agent activities, including their schedule adherence and key performance indicators. Managers can review service level results, costs and revenue.
The end result is more accurate forecasts and schedules for more efficient case management and faster case resolution, which leaves help desk and customer support employees free to help more customers with a frankly better quality of service, helping customers realize a better customer experience.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi