Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

April 28, 2009

Value Proposition for Workforce Optimization

By Guenter Brast


Workforce optimization (WFO) has been touted for some time now, but many contact center managers have delayed in fully adopting its technology.
 
You have to measure something if you want to improve it. If you want to measure the quality of your agent’s performance, or if you want to verify compliance, you must track relevant customer interactions.
 
WFO Functions
WFO solutions incorporate the following functionalities to record and analyze customer interactions:
 
  • High-quality logging units with flexible recording of multiple channels and customizable discarding rules;
  • A quality measurement, evaluation and calibration tool to handle agent performance;
  • eLearning and eCoaching tools to evaluate agents and educate them;
  • Multi-dimensional analytics to retrieve the content of all communications including audio and video;
  • Sophisticated interaction categorization and analytics reporting capabilities to support business process monitoring; and
  • Data exchange interfaces to CRM or Workforce Management systems.
Benefits for Call Center Operations
Recording and logging of contact center interactions help contact center operators fulfill compliance rules. Screen recordings help to detect problems in the user interface caused by scripts, poor application design or inadequate training. Improvement in these areas boosts agent proficiency quickly and dramatically.
 
Quality monitoring (QM) combined with audio analytics locates meaningful calls to help supervisors identify agents needing improvement, thus making training much more efficient. Training progress is documented by the QM system, and qualification levels can be integrated with Workforce Management to assign agents according to their skills.
 
In near real-time, call center supervisors can identify unusual behavior. For example, higher consulting demands for certain products might be detected and, through root-cause analysis, the reason can be found and resolved.
 
Benefits for Agent Retention
As contact center agents receive more complex assignments, it becomes more important to increase their job satisfaction and minimize attrition. WFO enables a systematic approach to personal balance and workloads. More individual training and better coaching improves motivation and job performance. QM recording decreases the pressure of exams and leads to better overall results. Calibration of KPIs makes evaluation independent from personal relationships between the coach and agent. 
 
Benefits for Back-Office Operations
WFO and association with multi-dimensional analytics extract the gold nuggets from the mine of customer interactions. Sales and marketing departments can better understand the needs of the customer in order to monitor and maintain the success of campaigns. Customer satisfaction can be accurately measured and competitive situations thoroughly researched. eLearning capabilities provide comprehensive agent education to learn new scripts.  
 
Conclusion
In a modern contact center with educated agents, the customer gets more and better help. Recording and tools for compliance control will make all business transactions conform to the necessary standards. And the insight provided for back-office divisions will lead to better products and services due to improved understanding of customer needs.
 
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ASC (News - Alert) is a leading global provider of innovative solutions to record, analyze and evaluate multimedia-based communications. ASC’s solutions reveal vital information, enabling companies and organizations to considerably improve their value creation: contact centers enhance customer service, efficiently deploy staff and increase productivity. Financial institutions fulfill documentation requirements, achieve a higher level of legal security and reduce costs. First responders and public safety organizations enhance reactivity in emergency situations; therefore, ASC provides an important contribution to public safety.
 
 
 



Edited by Greg Galitzine


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