Industry panel debate reveals challenges around workforce optimisation

Industry Panel Debate shares WFO best practices and identifies key lessons learnt

Commenting on the Panel’s findings, Ann-Marie Stagg said: “Sharing best practice isn’t always about learning how to do things right, it’s also making sure that you learn from the experiences of others about what not to do. Responding to questions from the delegates, the panel used their own experiences of building and managing their own contact centre operations, and their real world understanding of the benefits and pitfalls of implementing Workforce Optimisation, to provide knowledgeable advice.

“For the delegates attending this proved invaluable as they were able to hear answers that related directly to their own situation, and receive suggestions that they could put into practice when they returned to their own contact centres,” she continued.

Among the top lessons learnt by the panellists were:

• To get the most from your WFO investment, don’t implement your individual tools without modelling an overall WFO approach first
  
• Don’t forget to sell the benefits of a WFO tool to your staff before starting a project, for example you need to get your Team Managers onside before selling WFM benefits to agents
  
• Look for the key outputs that can help improve your overall customer service, don’t just focus on your internal agent concerns
  
• Don’t rush your technology implementation, opt for a phased approach – if it goes in before people are ready you won’t get the best result
  
• Invest in people and processes to support your WFO programme – your Team Managers won’t have the time to run it themselves
  
• Don’t overlook the project management and implementation capabilities available from your systems integration partner, this can be essential for a successful deployment
  
• WFO solutions are only as good as the people who are using them and interpreting the data – don’t expect technology alone to bring you the results you need
  
• Don’t overlook testing – you’ve got to test your WFO solutions before you take them anywhere near a live contact centre
  
• Build an ROI based on quantifiable results, the qualitative benefits will follow

The panellists also fielded questions on a range of further topics including new opportunities for technology-enabled customer feedback, recommendations for building more compelling Workforce Optimisation ROI, and approaches for extending WFO initiatives to outsourced partner operations.

Delegates were enthusiastic about the potential of Customer Feedback as part of an integrated WFO approach, particularly in support of existing customer contact initiatives. The panel made a number of recommendations here, including making sure that organisations responded to customer feedback, using complaints information to improve customer service, and not forgetting to talk to agents who invariably know what customers are unhappy about, and its your agents who can probably identify nine out of ten customer issues straight away.