Putting workforce optimisation to work

The success of any business is based on the satisfaction of its customers and the performance of its employees. As customers demand higher quality, competitively priced products and improved service, contact centres are continually tasked with striking a balance between service quality, efficiency and effectiveness, and revenue generation, cost cutting and profitability.

In order to learn from ongoing customer and employee interactions and make noticeable improvements, businesses need to employ a workforce optimisation (WFO) strategy that is supported by technology, not the other way around.

In today`s customer service contact centres, WFO is successfully redefining the alignment of people, processes and technology and forcing managers to evaluate antiquated processes that may not result in tangible business value. Forward-thinking executives are beginning to realise the contact centre is the core of the business and a source of additional revenue if managed properly.

For example, today`s customer service representatives (CSRs) are charged with delivering consistent service across customer touch points, up-selling, cross-selling and saving at-risk customers, while also winning new ones. Most people would agree that these responsibilities are strategically important to any business.

Forward-thinking executives are beginning to realise the contact centre is the core of the business and a source of additional revenue if managed properly.

Oscar Alban, principal market consultant at Witness Systems.

However, despite these strategic directives, contact centres are still being measured by tactical metrics such as the "average handle time" of phone calls. These metrics - while helpful to supervisors and managers for statistical purposes - do not represent whether a customer will likely buy a product from the company again. Further, the "handle time" doesn`t reveal if a customer threatened to discontinue service and transfer to a competitive offering.

If companies want to see value from their contact centres, they need to stop looking at hollow, service-oriented statistics simply because that is how it`s always been done and instead, start putting processes and measurements in place that can actually facilitate and show business value.

Industry experts conclude that the WFO market is set to be a global market projected to reach $1 billion in 2006. As the market matures, customers are demanding more robust, integrated software and services. This is why the following four technology segments that comprise WFO are becoming the focal points of successful centres and thriving enterprises. When working optimally together, they support a greater overall customer service strategy.

The four key contact centre technology segments are:

* Quality monitoring/call recording - Voice of the customer; the complete customer experience across multimedia touch points.
* Workforce management - Strategic forecasting and scheduling that drives efficiency and adherence, aids in planning, and helps facilitate optimum staffing and service levels.
* Performance management - Key performance indicators (KPIs) and scorecards that analyse and help identify synergies, opportunities and improvement areas.
* E-learning - Training, new information and protocol disseminated to staff, leveraging best practice customer interactions and delivering learning to support development.

Independently, each delivers results. But it`s when the two anchor segments of quality monitoring/call recording and workforce management are united with performance management and e-learning that true customer value emerges. These four segments become part of an interwoven and interoperable solution, enabling contact centres to transition from reactive cost centres to proactive, information-rich departments that deliver strategic value to the organisation.

In the contact centre, a performance-enhancing culture is dependent upon quality monitoring and performance management to give managers a better understanding of how the workforce is performing and quickly identifying areas for improvement. Workforce management and e-learning are critical for helping them plan appropriately and put processes in place to enhance performance. Together, these four segments give companies the insight they need to proactively address cost control issues and put revenue-generating initiatives in place.

Although most call centres are already using one or more of WFO`s foundation technology segments, the majority have yet to leverage them together and to their full potential. Just as WFO must be viewed as a strategy, the supporting technology must be one interoperable solution, which translates into immediate savings.

Historically, companies have taken existing individual segments of WFO and worked behind the scenes, trying to link them to their other technologies and infrastructure. Now, with pre-packaged solutions, companies can make the installation and implementation process easier, reduce learning curves and training expenses, simplify upgrades and lower maintenance and software expenses - all of which translates into lower total cost of ownership and faster, ongoing ROI.

The competitive advantages of WFO can be realised by both small and large contact centres across industries, ranging from telecommunications, to banking and financial services, to utility providers. However, fast and ongoing ROI can only be achieved through a WFO strategy that is surrounded by the people, solid processes and interwoven technologies that can grow with the company. If an organisation surrounds the technology with poor training and ineffective processes, ROI will be long in coming.

In order to leverage WFO technology to its fullest potential, organisations need to evaluate how they manage people and processes. The following five steps are critical to achieving positive WFO results:

1. Start with planning and establishing goals; there must be objectives that complement and support one another between the call centre and the enterprise as a whole.
2. Forecast and schedule the workforce to ensure optimum service levels balances out disparate work shifts and accounts for differences in peak days/times.
3. Record and measure performance; leverage quality monitoring/call recording to assess service quality and the customer experience.
4. Analyse and identify opportunities tied into your KPIs and scorecards, which can be quite telling about how you`re really doing.
5. E-learning and company-specific best practices documented through captured customer interactions make it possible to address skill and knowledge gaps efficiently and effectively - as well as quickly communicate policy or procedural changes across the centre - enabling it to achieve success in whatever terms it chooses to define.

Once these processes are in place, quality-monitoring scores can be fed directly into workforce management to produce, for example, staffing models that prevent companies from unknowingly scheduling one shift with top performers. As a result, they can guarantee a higher level of consistent service across shifts. Rather than arbitrarily sending e-learning training segments and hoping CSRs take them, centres can use advanced workforce management forecasting and scheduling. This helps select the best time to administer training, which is proven to be more effective than classroom/group learning. While each WFO technology segment delivers value, integration is the key. Utilising them separately only limits the contact centre`s potential to become a strategic business asset.

Each individual organisation`s needs are different, and the beauty of WFO is that it is meant to adapt to and work for the company, not the other way around.

When it comes down to connecting a workforce to be more effective and productive, WFO is not limited to spreading outward solely from the contact centre.

The ideas, formulas and capabilities lend themselves to other areas, and a fully-linked organisation should be a goal for any company wishing to have a truly dialled-in environment.