Making the Most of Your Workforce Management Solutions: Productivity is Key

A productive work environment is key to any workplace, specifically in reference to call centers where time is money. It’s important that everything from payroll and benefits to performance management and scheduling activities are properly organized and decoded. By accurately measuring these performance metrics and keeping track of call center employees’ performance through data analysis, it becomes significantly easier to increase your call center’s overall productivity. Follow some of these tips to ensure that you are utilizing your workforce management and optimization at the highest capacity.

Prioritize Your Measurements

For many, it may be initially overwhelming to sort through and decide what to measure with all of the different tasks and analytics that are available. However, there are a few key performance indicators (KPIs) that should be first on your measuring bucket list to garner the best results in your call center.

• First Call Resolution: Assesses how frequently a customer’s problem can be fixed on the first call.
• Agent Schedule Adherence: Measures how precisely call center agents stick to their call schedule.
• Call Abandonment Rate: Exposes how many calls are abandoned before they are answered.
• Service Level: Typically set up by a Service Level Agreement (SLA), this tool allows you to track how often calls are answered within a certain amount of time.

Tracking these types of metrics, though it requires some due diligence, can yield significant benefits. For example, something as small as helping customers reach a solution on the very first call has the potential to save significant money over time.

Optimizing Business Intelligence

It’s no secret that call centers are always in search of new ways to improve overall productivity levels. Business Intelligence (BI) is helping to reshape the way contact centers are analyzing their data and leveraging it to improve productivity levels, streamline internal operations and ultimately move the business forward. Yet, many contact centers are finding themselves confused on where to start, which is where BI tools come into play. New methodologies are making it easier than ever to not only access a broader range of data, but to understand and put this information into action as a means of improving productivity.

Having access to information that is presented in easy-to-interpret, customizable charts is also playing a major role in shifting contact center operations for the better. Call center managers can now take advantage of an automated tool that quickly presents metrics on areas such as agent performance and team efficiency, which when implemented, can significantly help increase productivity levels and streamline day-to-day administration procedures.

Establish a Grade-A Workforce

Once you’ve reviewed all of the analytics and metrics, the next step would be to utilize them to improve your personnel and training decision-making process. Tools such as agent level data reports can organize all of the information and gear training towards those on your staff who would benefit from it the most. For example, if an agent has quick problem solving skills and can work in a fast manner then it might be best to schedule him/her during the busiest times. For those agents who need more training or take a little longer to resolve issues, you can schedule them during lighter work periods. Leveraging key business intelligence data can help call centers best allocate their resources in a way that not only maximizes efficiency, but also in turn leads to greater productivity gains down the road. It’s a known fact that every call center has its strengths and weaknesses, so leaning on data that can best determine how to play on strengths and minimize weaknesses is a huge advantage.

In short, workforce optimization solutions can be extremely beneficial to call center managers, if utilized properly. By understanding and using the collected data, you can guarantee an upshift in productivity and ultimately, long-term success.