Tortoise or hare – which one best describes your contact center?

According to Carlos Muños, contact centers are sometimes too efficient for their own good leading to poor customer service and high agent attrition rates.  It’s time to introduce a ‘less haste, more speed’ culture supported by the latest technology.  Here, he explains how to build highly effective teams using WFM.

Running a contact center takes me back to my school days and Aesop’s Fable of the ‘Tortoise and the Hare’. We all know the one, it’s ingrained into our psyche but in a world obsessed with speed, do we really put its teachings into practice?  The faster hare is so confident of winning the race that it falls asleep and is beaten by the slower tortoise – the first to reach the finishing line using a steady, measured pace.  In a similar way, contact centers are often so determined to handle infinite numbers of calls as quickly as possible, they put unnecessary pressures on agents and lose sight of the customer.  In the process, staff leave along with customers and it takes much longer to get both back again.

Then, there’s the constant battle between operations (who want ‘fast and cheap’) and the contact center (whose job is to make ‘customers feel loved’).  This perennial tug of war is damaging to agent morale, the customer experience and health of the overall business.

The proverb ‘more haste, less speed’ springs to mind and contact centers should look to introduce a ‘less haste, more speed’ culture into their operations.  Real effectiveness is about providing agents with the right environment to give customers what they really want (fast, accurate answers to their problems first time around) while maximizing resources as cost-effectively as possible.

Metrics that matter

It all comes down to the basics so let’s start with how contact centers measure their success.  Most make the mistake of developing a set of metrics that focus entirely on satisfying their internal customers rather than those on the outside who are keeping them in jobs and the organization in business!  The top three culprits are:

1. Number of contacts handled over a certain period of time – of course, this is great for managers who want to look productive by saying ‘we handle 100 calls every hour using only 10 agents’ but what does this really mean for customer service?
2. Occupancy – it’s good to know how many of your resources are being used at any one time but it’s even better to keep some agents in ‘reserve’ to handle random contact arrival patterns and maintain service levels.
3. Average Handling Times – if service is measured by how quickly agents can get customers off the phone or finish a web chat conversation, chances are they are not really listening to the customer who won’t get the outcome they expect and deserve.

Thinking from the outside in will yield a set of metrics that enable agents to focus 100% on the customer – the true meaning of effectiveness.

Ways to build effectiveness using WFM

With customer-centric success criteria in place, turn to innovative workforce management (WFM) technology to build a highly effective contact center environment:

• Schedule administrative tasks and training during quiet times – using WFM to schedule offline activities such as administration, training and weekly huddles when it is quiet, maximizes time and resources and enables agents to give their full attention to the customer during busy periods
• Add ‘travel time’ into schedules – in a bid to save time, managers often take short-cuts and make schedules unrealistic.  For example, they don’t factor in the travel time needed to get from the contact center floor to the training rooms.  Adding a cushion of 5 minutes either side of a 30-minute training session will make it easy for everyone to arrive on time without running while adhering to their schedules
• Flexible planning ‘on the go’ – the flexibility of modern technology means you can schedule - in advance - the right number of staff to match call demand.  Features such as Real-Time Adherence flag up when schedules are in danger of being breached while Intra-day Schedulers allow managers to reschedule the contact center workforce during the day taking into account unplanned changes in customer demand and unplanned agent absences
• Create your best-performing team – use WFM to create a virtual library of agent talent, knowledge and qualifications to deploy the right-skilled agents to the right place at the right time.  Tap into this data to identify missing competencies and build tailored training programs along with meaningful career paths that keep agents stimulated, motivated and away from the competition
• Empower agents - through self-service to control their own schedules, select breaks and lunches, swap shifts and request time off with immediate feedback from their manager. Then, make the most of advanced WFM reporting and dashboards to provide a real-time snapshot of employee and team performance against specific contact center KPIs or customer SLAs in a fair and transparent way
• Future-proof operations – by maximizing the latest forecasting technology to right-size your contact center. Running a series of ‘what if’ scenarios helps to predict staffing needs for regular seasonal fluctuations such as public holidays or new marketing campaigns.  This provides the analytical evidence required to work effectively with outsourcing agencies to supplement in-house resources during busy periods while avoiding unnecessary staff costs during calmer periods.

Why be a hare when you can be the winning tortoise?  Put in place the metrics that really matter then back them up with WFM to build a highly effective contact center where talented agents are proud to work and go the extra mile to delight customers at every turn.

Carlos Muñoz Director, Sales Engineering, Teleopti Americas

Source: https://blog.teleopti.com/2018/10/05/tortoise-or-hare-which-one-best-describes-your-contact-center/

2023 Buyers Guide

Get Listed

SaaS Solutions

 

1.)

CrankWheel CrankWheel Screen Sharing CrankWheel is an easy and simple screen sharing solution, made for the needs of salespeople and customer service agents. CrankWheel complements voice calls by adding visuals to ongoing calls. There is no need to get the customer off the phone, onto another platform. Agents share their screens by directing clients to a link that can be sent via SMS, email or simply spelled out. The client can enter on any device, mobile, desktop or tablet and enters the session instantly. There is no registration or download required by the client. Features: - Screen sharing - Agents can hand control over to the client - Warm lead capture widget that alerts the sales team instantly of an intere... (read more)CrankWheel is an easy and simple screen sharing solution, made for the needs of salespeople and customer service agents. CrankWheel complements voice calls by adding visuals to ongoing calls. There is no need to get the customer off the phone, onto another platform. Agents share their screens by directing clients to a link that can be sent via SMS, email or simply spelled out. The client can enter on any device, mobile, desktop or tablet and enters the session instantly. There is no registration or download required by the client. Features: - Screen sharing - Agents can hand control over to the client - Warm lead capture widget that alerts the sales team instantly of an interested prospect. - Share HD video with sound in a screen share - Live engagement monitor - Recording of sessions - Post session redirect

2.)

enthu.ai We help you automate your QA program using artificial intelligence. Why just listen to 6 calls when you can listen to 100% of your calls that too without adding any additional resources. We empower QAs to get to the right calls, find coaching and training opportunities and improve overall Customer experience.

 

View more from Calabrio

Recent Blog Posts:

Data is everything in the new era of customer service	May 20, 2019
Real-Time Adherence – the art of smarter scheduling	May 8, 2019
Evolving employee engagement with Workforce Management (WFM)	April 30, 2019
Guest Blog: There’s a brighter future for contact centre agents	April 12, 2019
Centralized or de-centralized WFM: 5 ways to strike the perfect balance	April 8, 2019
How patient are your customers? Erlang A may have the answer	March 25, 2019
Evaluating if the integration between your WFM & CX platform will be a big “Yes”	February 25, 2019
The whole organization is a customer service center – not everyone knows it yet!	February 4, 2019
Resistance to change – the arch nemesis of customer experience	January 22, 2019
5 steps to supercharge your customer service with contextual intelligence	January 7, 2019