Delving Deeper into Workforce Management for the Back Office

Here are three ideas that will help to ease workforce management-related pressure on the back office of the contact centre.

It is no secret that as a contact centre manager you have to be an expert at doing more with less and prioritising your goals as you go along. This usually means keeping your main focus on front-office performance and excellent customer service. However, more often than not, this can leave the back office, a vital branch of the operational family, at a disadvantage.

Fortunately, the same workforce management (WFM) solution which helps keep your front line in check can also work wonders for your back office. Here, we delve deeper into the world of workforce management technology for the back office and how it can help cut costs, meet service level agreements and establish operational efficiency.

1. Forecast and Schedule Workloads

Back-office tasks can be manual and complex, making it hard to automate and forecast workloads. WFM back-office technology combats this, by calculating the time it takes to complete a task and forecasting work schedules that are in line with your service level agreements.

With this information intact, back-office departments can ensure they have the right employees with the right skill sets at the right time to complete the required volume of work.

Alongside operational efficiencies, cost savings are also gained as accurately forecast schedules decrease the likelihood of unplanned overtime.

2. Desktop Technology

Many WFM solutions have now seen the introduction of desktop analytics, a feature that allows you to monitor the productivity of agents working within the back office.

With desktop technology, configurable sensors measure and report across a wide range of windows PC applications. These sensors can capture, for example, the number of times a mouse is being clicked in order to complete a workflow, allowing you to analyse and re-evaluate the process for improved efficiency.

Events such as windows login, logout, keyboard/mouse idle and application use can also be monitored. This data can then be used to follow adherence to KPIs and extract valuable information for reports on the efficiency of the department, identifying gaps where support may be needed or workflows can be simplified.

3. Advanced Reporting

Back-office WFM solutions also allow you to report on the operational efficiency of your operations. Configurable tabular and graphical reports can be made available to the entire organisation via a web browser.

All employees are able to see where they stand versus targets and versus their colleagues. Analysts, WFM professionals and contact centre managers can investigate this data to understand near-term issues and longer-term trends, as well as to challenge existing workflows.

Additionally, more accurate costs and budgets can be allocated to projects, allowing managers to ensure profitability, identifying the areas where the project ended up costing more or less than originally planned.

Most back-office departments require improved management and productivity tools. As has been proven in the front office, with a well-implemented and managed workforce management solution, operational changes can be made and productivity efficiencies achieved.

If you need to find out more about back-office workforce management solutions, then contact our team for best practice advice.