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By: Bob Webb, Pipkins, Inc.

Contact centers walk a delicate balance between profit and loss. This problem can be mitigated by full utilization of a quality workforce management system that offers time tested solutions with proven results. Understanding the basics enables companies to understand the power and fully utilize their workforce management purchase.

What is Workforce Management and Who Needs It?

Workforce Management (WFM) is the process of balancing work to be completed with the resources available to complete that work and is a critical component for contact centers. Any contact center wishing to maintain consistent service levels will benefit from WFM. Many small centers (50 agents or less) can calculate workload forecasting on a spreadsheet; however, large centers cannot operate efficiently without automated WFM software, and WFM is an absolute necessity for inbound call centers.

The importance of WFM is reflected in a company’s financial bottom line. If work volume cannot be anticipated, over- or understaffing of agents occurs. Both scenarios are costly. Understaffing results in lost sales due to incoming calls not being answered within established guidelines. Customers lost to poor customer service resulting from unanswered calls are hard, if not impossible, to recapture. Overstaffing has an equally negative effect on bottom line profits. Idle, unproductive agents cost money in wasted labor expenses.

The only solution to finding a balance in workload and resources is to have an effective method of calculating how many incoming calls are anticipated at any given time. Providing the required accuracy by taking into account all the historic and future dynamics requires a sophisticated forecasting tool. Only the most sophisticated systems can perform correlated forecasting, which is forecasting for specific events such as catalog drops or other marketing events that cause wide fluctuations in the volume of calls that must be processed.

Accurate forecasting: The heart of workforce management

Accurate forecasting is the foundation of contact center scheduling, and without it, over- and understaffing will occur. Accurate forecasting in a skill-based routing environment is the most critical component of WFM. Accurate scheduling depends on the forecast correctly estimating anticipated call volume and determining the number of agents required to meet service levels. How does this affect profitability? In a real life scenario, if call volume is underestimated to the extent that 100 callers out of 1,000 hang up before they speak to an agent in a sales environment where the average order is just $50, $5,000 in lost revenues will occur per day, $150,000 per month, or a staggering $1.8 million per year.

What determines accurate forecasting?

Critical components of WFM software for accurate forecasting include:

· The amount of historical data available – critical to ensure that the forecasting tool has as much information about what happened in the past and what you expect in the future, and that it will allow you to input this information and make proper use of it

· The nature of the data

· The forecasting period

· An infinite number of different service objectives on one or more work streams

· Algorithms that reflect real life customer behavior

· Special events are treated differently, i.e., mail drops, campaigns, and special promotions can be quantified

· Email and faxes have service objectives reflecting the way that work is handled

How to Choose a Workforce Management System

With all the options available from different vendors, making the right purchasing decision can be confusing. Making the right purchasing decision to meet your needs on the front-end eliminates the need for future adjustments. Investigate before you buy and talk to more than one vendor to ensure you are getting the right solution.

These five simple steps can ensure you are choosing a system that meets your needs and that you are fully utilizing your purchase.

1. Invest in a quality WFM system that has stood the test of time.

Investing in the best quality WFM system offers an advantage that helps ensure you will not encounter some of the same problems you are trying to resolve initially. Choose a system that can collect enough data to generate an accurate forecast and accommodate all variables that exist with scheduling.

2. Partner with your vendor.

Purchase WFM software from a vendor who will partner with you and understands your specific needs.

3. Ongoing training should be part of the corporate budget.

When purchasing a WFM solution, factor in costs for future training for new employees as well as ongoing training for existing users.

4. Each supervisor should go through training.

When an existing supervisor is replaced, the new employee should receive their own training. Second-generation training allows for approximately 50% training knowledge. If the employee who receives only 50% knowledge trains a third person, that person will receive 15-20% training knowledge.

5. Take advantage of upgrades and get trained on them.

Upgrades are created for your benefit. Training on upgrades ensures your software is working at maximum capacity for you.

Conclusion

Workforce management software is instrumental in impacting a company’s bottom line through improved customer service. Busies and abandon rates are reduced and target service levels are more easily achieved. An investment in workforce management software in today’s contact center environment is critical to remaining competitive and providing the service your customers expect.

About Pipkins

Pipkins, Inc., founded in 1983, is a leading supplier of workforce management software and services to the call center industry, providing sophisticated forecasting and scheduling technology for both the front and back office. Its award-winning Vantage Point is the most accurate forecasting and scheduling tool on the market. Pipkins’ systems forecast and schedule more than 300,000 agents in over 500 locations across all industries worldwide. For more information, visit www.Pipkins.com.