What contact center visionaries know about workforce optimization—and how they’re using it to get ahead of the competition
Gartner researchers suggest we’re nearing the middle of a revolutionary decade. The world of work in 2020, they predict, will be increasingly chaotic, profoundly virtual and hyper-connected. Gartner Fellow Diane Morello says that businesses must prepare for an environment in which hundreds, possibly thousands, of people will have the power to influence the company’s direction, service and reputation—across markets, outside official channels, and at a pace that’s simply stunning.
In other words, things are getting complicated.
The contact center is certainly no stranger to a certain degree of chaos with its complex networks of connections. Employing tools such as workforce optimization (WFO) solutions, contact center leaders manage their operations and oversee performance, quality, competencies, scheduling and forecasting. Individually, each of these tools plays an important role. But the real value, Gartner suggests, comes from integrating them, aligning them in a way that ensures a seamless flow of data to all points in the system—and back again.
“The era of buying stand-alone, best-of-breed, agent-centric technologies for core WFO functions (such as call recording and agent scheduling) is gradually coming to an end.”
Gartner estimates that by year-end 2015, 30 percent of organizations with more than 300 agents will have adopted an integrated approach to WFO. And by making that investment in the future, these visionary organizations are getting ahead of this business wave and riding it to a competitive advantage.
Hyper-connected—and hyper-performing
In a hyper-connected world, all of the contact center’s touchpoints—agents, channels, data—must be integrated and accessible to everyone in real time, and in ways that make sense to each individual. A well-crafted WFO solution makes that possible, enabling leaders to orchestrate a seriously high-performing contact center—conducting people, data, operations, customer management, technology, facilities and interfaces with other business functions.
Putting Big Data to work
Big Data, flowing out of the billions of devices that make up the ever-exploding Internet of Things, is changing the way companies interact with and serve their customers. For contact centers, the biggest—and most valuable—data comes directly from the voice of the customer. WFO solutions that integrate sophisticated analytics to uncover trends, relating to everything from competitive threats to sales and marketing effectiveness to the performance of contact center agents, enable managers to tap into one of the single most powerful competencies in the contact center: root cause analysis. It’s a decision-making engine that’s not only helping them put out the day-to-day fires but, more importantly, providing directional guidance for the road ahead.
Keeping customers—and agents—happy
Thoughtfully designed WFO solutions empower people—they don’t replace them. The most effective offerings in this space are designed to enhance human performance and decision-making. Visionary leaders get it: the idea that a simple interface, tailored to each person’s role, can dramatically improve usability and agent performance.
Contact centers, after all, are where real people have real conversations that matter. And the customers on the other end of our connection, the people we all strive to keep happy, also benefit from WFO solutions. How so? By connecting them more quickly and efficiently with the information they need—from the right person, right away. Doing that well not only reduces service costs but also sets your organization apart. In the digital realm of 2020, finding a way to deliver outstanding customer service in a highly automated environment will be absolutely critical.
Innovate, integrate and differentiate
Innovation, said Steve Jobs, distinguishes between a leader and a follower. Visionaries who get it are innovating now, investing in integrated technology like WFO to prepare for the new realities of the contact center, to set themselves apart and to lead the market into 2020 and beyond.
Tom Goodmanson is the CEO of Calabrio, which Gartner positioned as a Visionary in its 2013 Magic Quadrant for Contact Center Workforce Optimization.
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