As a contact center leader, you’re always looking for ways to improve your operations and manage costs. However, money isn’t exactly growing on trees, so you also need to be cautious about where your budget is spent to maximize the greatest impact possible.
This common balancing act of continuous improvement versus being fiscally sound is why more contact centers are evaluating or upgrading their workforce management (WFM) technology. Here are four specific reasons why WFM software is the forgotten solution to maximizing contact center ROI (return on investment).
1) It can significantly improve scheduling and forecasting accuracy – One of the main ways contact centers can save money is by cutting staffing costs. However, this savings is often coupled with significant risk. If you’re understaffed it can lead to long hold times, frustrated customers, and lost business. And, with customer retention data becoming more sophisticated than ever before, leading companies are now able to see exactly when they lose a customer. This level of information enables you to identify the specific call or interaction as the moment a customer defected and the agent that took the call. Because of the major impact both overstaffing and understaffing can have on a business, companies are counting on WFM software to help improve forecasting and scheduling accuracy. Within WFM software systems, companies leverage historical data in real-time to create more accurate forecasts and schedules so the right number of agents are staffed at the right time to improve ROI.
2) It can have a major impact on agent retention – Getting your forecasts and schedules right is only half the battle. Once a customer engages your company, they need to have a great experience with a helpful agent to keep satisfaction levels high. And, in an era of primarily remote contact center work, competition for keeping top tier agents is at an all-time high. Improving agent retention is another reason why companies are turning to WFM software for all the solutions it provides to boost agent happiness and ROI. From a built-in communications framework to an agent portal which supports shift bidding to a mobile app with schedule notifications, there are several different ways to improve agent retention and happiness.
3) It frequently lowers overhead costs – Utilizing WFM software to improve agent retention often results in lower costs related directly to managing agents. This means companies may be able to improve their supervisor efficiency because agents are more self-sufficient working within a structed software environment. For example, a large contact center may have once needed a supervisor to be the primary point of contact for managing agent efficiency, vacation requests, tardiness, and more. With WFM software, information like adherence is available to both the agent and management, which often results in agents being more focused on their arrival times and overall productivity. Instead, this supervisor can focus on more on strategic goals such as revenue, training, and customer satisfaction. In addition, requests for time off are also automated within the software so agents can see in real-time what days are available and if they are able to get the vacation time they want. WFM software that focuses on agent automation and increasing information visibility can decrease the need for middle management overhead.
4) It enables teams to get the right data for many decisions – With everything WFM software provides, it also provides valuable data points for contact centers to use for both short- and long-term decision making. Solutions such as intraday management let the contact center team quickly shift and alter staff to meet customer demand in minutes instead of hours. Thinking more long term, WFM software stores a plethora of information including average handle time, service level success rates, performance by region or location, and much more. The software is a key information hub for making intelligent decisions that directly impact the ROI of a contact center.
We hope this information helped you better understand why sophisticated WFM software is a solution that flies under the radar for many contact centers but can have a major impact on creating a positive ROI. From improving agent efficiency to providing critical and actionable data, implementing a modern WFM software solution can be an excellent investment.
