What’s New in the World of Contact Centre WFM?

Donna Fluss of DMG Consulting LLC shares her thoughts on contact centre WFM and how it’s changing.

With so much going on in the world and many “fires” to put out, it’s tough to think about the future of our contact centres. But in case you want a break from the realities of COVID-19 and the havoc it is causing around the world, I am going to share some of my thoughts about the future of contact centre workforce management (WFM).

To begin with, if we had new-gen WFM solutions with real-time, adaptable intelligent intraday management modules supported by mobility in our contact centres today, we’d all be putting out fewer fires, but I am getting ahead of myself.

During the last weeks, I’ve spent the majority of my time sharing operational practices for managing contact centres through a pandemic – from my home office, of course. The most important task for contact centre leaders is to take care of their employees.

Yes, customers matter a great deal and we all want to be there for them, particularly in these trying times, but we need our contact centre agents and other staff to be healthy to achieve this goal.

The question is how WFM can help with this challenge.

We all know that WFM is the most important productivity tool in contact centres. It is also essential for delivering an outstanding customer experience (CX), as it determines the number of agents and skill sets needed to handle the projected volume of interactions. Now, this is where New-Gen WFM comes in.

WFM solutions project future interaction volumes based on historical activity and input from WFM administrators, but they can’t predict the unexpected, like COVID-19, for example, and its daily impact on agents.

The new generation of real-time, adaptive, intraday management solutions are constantly on and continuously calculating agent requirements; they take into account real-time changes in volumes and staffing levels due to agents calling in sick, coming in late or not being able to get in at all due to cancelled public transportation.