WFO, WFM Can Lower Costs, Increase Value of Contact Centers

Today is Customer Experience Day. At least that’s what the Customer Experience Professionals Association has declared it. So let’s use this important new holiday as an excuse to discuss contact center-related matters such as analytics, workforce management, and workforce optimization.

These topics are really important because they can help contact centers make the most of their human resources. And people make up the bulk of contact center expenditures. Plus, customer service employees obviously have a huge impact on the customer experience an organization delivers.

So what are workforce optimization, workforce management, and analytics? And what are the benefits of such solutions?

Well, workforce optimization, as the name suggests, is all about helping organizations get the greatest possible value out our their human resources. It’s about efficiency and productivity. And it’s about helping organizations meet their business goals and delivering the best possible customer experiences while keeping costs under control.

Scheduling solutions are an important part of workforce optimization in the contact center. They can allow businesses to make sure they’re assigning shifts and tasks to the most appropriate people. They can tie in with other business solutions to schedule and provide personnel with training and updates. All that can allow for better trained, more engaged, and more informed contact center agents and managers. And that can drive higher contact center returns on investment and lower customer service costs.

Workforce management solutions can deliver similar results. But these solutions do that by managing employ benefits and payroll, taking attendance and keeping track of who’s doing what when, tracking key performance indicators, and helping with employee recruitment and onboarding.

Analytics related to WFM and WFO can help contact centers better understand the individual metrics and overall performance of their agents and organizations. It can help businesses get a better handle on the level of customer experience they’re delivering. And it can assist contact centers in making decisions for the future – such as how many and which people to schedule which days and seasons, whether they have too many or too few contact center resources in place, what they’re doing well, and in which areas they need improvement.

Edited by Maurice Nagle