#contactcenterworld, @Calabrio

Author: Magnus Geverts, VP Product Marketing & Management, Calabrio

Now is the time for organisations to re-think their cloud contact centre strategy. In the first of a new series of blogs, here are three top tips for empowering employees using the latest cloud-based innovations in Workforce Engagement Management (WEM).

The pandemic has shifted the world of work and elevated the importance of agility in contact centres to meet the moment - whatever that moment may be. Right now, it’s working from home (WFH) which presents significant challenges for many, and addressing these challenges successfully is critical at a time when customer expectations are also changing.

Cloud-based communications systems offer far more flexibility than traditional on-premises solutions. Agility is the name of the game and the ability to implement remote working and scale up and down with a highly available platform means it is the perfect time to transition to the cloud.

Customer service starts with people, and the recent changes in the world of work present a great opportunity for contact centres to engage with their frontline staff. In order to achieve this a truly integrated cloud-based platform is required. Avoiding siloed products by choosing an all-in-one solution that includes quality management (QM), workforce management (WFM), analytics and business intelligence, means agents and contact centre leaders can see all critical data on a single unified dashboard.

If agents are given the right data, framework and tools to do their job, they grow in confidence - and working from home quickly turns into work from anywhere. They become free agents with the power to transform the customer experience (CX).

3 ways to empower employees with a little help from the cloud

Success begins with a smarter approach to Workforce Engagement Management (WEM). Using integrated cloud-based technology promotes agent autonomy, facilitates flexible scheduling and forecasting, and boosts business agility, all in one go. Here are three ways to get started:

1. Enable your teams, wherever and whenever – encourage employee autonomy by giving frontline staff the right tools to do their job. This puts them in control of a tricky WFH environment where customer and domestic commitments often vie for attention. Empower home-based agents with comprehensive self-service capabilities, including the ability to trade shifts, book time off and obtain overtime slots via a mobile app or secure staff portal. The cloud allows the use of intelligent automation to create a self-regulating contact centre. Virtual assistants can help to connect and enable remote teams by continuously seeking and offering new schedule opportunities, therefore freeing up time for busy planners.
   
   
2. Boost business agility - with valuable intelligence. Giving supervisors predictive analytics and powerful reporting enables improved planning, performance and wider workforce engagement. The latest analytics tools help contact centre leaders understand the "why" behind the "what" of operations to improve agent and customer experience. Beyond that, combining WEM, quality management and analytics helps further analyse operational issues, identify root causes and drive meaningful changes to the business.
   
   Indeed, contact centre operations need to be more connected than ever before. Team leaders can rely on the sophisticated data collection capabilities of today’s WEM solutions to create a single view of customer interaction data from inside and outside of the contact centre. When linked to critical cloud-based solutions such as ACD, CRM, HR Management and ERP systems, WEM helps to effortlessly track performance, facilitate employee gamification and support faster decision-making.
   
   
3. Understand the power of forecasts and robust scheduling – to plan for any eventuality in a world where there is greater demand for flexi-shifts. Today’s WEM solutions are optimised for effective employee engagement and staff planning. New cloud-based WEM solutions offer agile scheduling and forecasting functionality that serves the complexities of today’s multi-skill, omni-channel contact centre environment. Use the latest cloud solutions to accommodate change and create schedules and forecasts that show you listen to and care for your employees. Aim to take into account staff preferences while meeting important customer SLAs. WEM technology is equally effective for short and longer-term planning while allowing real-time changes to be made, on-the-day, as business evolves.
   
   

#contactcenterworld, @Calabrio