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Workforce management, or WFM, has come a long way since the first employee punched the newly introduced time clock 135 years ago. Today, we have an array of software to track workers’ hours as well as log their vacation hours and other benefits, calculate their payroll taxes, and, of course, pay them. For most modern workers, there is no longer any need to physically “punch the clock.” But what about workforce management in the call center?
Managers in call centers and contact centers have clear responsibilities when it comes to modern workforce management, including developing processes to achieve company goals and optimize agent productivity. That said, WFM is about much more than having the right number of agents in place at the right time — although that’s part of call center workforce management best practices.
In this post, we look at what workforce management means, discuss how it works, and outline strategies to use for the effective organization of workforce management in a call center. We also highlight modern workforce management tools that call center managers can use to make their jobs easier.
What is WFM in a call center context? Essentially, the definition of call center workforce management is the combination of strategies, processes, and technologies used to ensure the right number of agents are working at the right time and which together help to optimize agent productivity so that these employees can deliver a heightened customer experience.
And, by the way, managers need to keep in mind that a well-thought-out workforce management approach is needed just as much in a remote call center as it is in a physical one.
Managing agents is only one small part of a call center manager’s role. Today’s managers must possess an array of skills to help them meet the challenges of a very complex and increasingly more tech-driven work environment. Among the most important call center workforce management fundamentals are:
Managers must use historical data on workloads, combined with knowledge of current business conditions, trends, and awareness of company initiatives, such as marketing campaigns, to perform call center workforce management forecasting accurately.
Call center managers must also consider extraordinary demands such as unanticipated product recalls and other unexpected factors, such as customer behaviors when developing staffing demand forecasts.
Effective schedules depend on accurate forecasting and realistic anticipation of customer demand. For example: If you have a major summer sales campaign in Europe and your primary contact center is on the U.S. West Coast, you’ll need your center fully staffed between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. PT to make calls at the optimum time to the European market because of the time difference.
Managers also must consider flexible schedules — where agents have greater say over when and for how long they work – if they want to recruit and retain the best talent for their teams. Research shows that three-quarters of contact center agents today demand flexible scheduling.
Monitoring of call center operations is critical since it helps with tracking call center workforce management metrics and provides valuable data for performance management. Managers can use data such as first call resolution and time spent on calls to determine which agents are setting a high bar on performance and which employees may need additional training.
Monitoring agents’ workloads is very important. Managers can make quick adjustments to avoid discontent, absenteeism, and even burnout among their staff — and maintain good performance management overall.
Another key role for managers in a workforce management program is assigning agents.
When assigning agents to specific tasks and times, consider employee engagement and satisfaction. Also, try to make the most of each agent’s individual strengths. If you have a product recall, for example, you want to make sure you’re positioning your more experienced team members on the front line.
Workforce management includes the everyday blocking and tackling that managers must do to maintain efficient operations in the call center. For example, if someone doesn’t turn up for a shift, then your priority is finding someone quickly to fill the gap.
To maintain efficiency in the call center, managers also need to pay close attention to general trends in call volume. If you observe that more calls tend to come in on Mondays and Wednesdays, then you’ll want to adjust your staff scheduling to ensure you have enough agents in place on those days. If call volume is typically low on Thursdays, you can schedule fewer agents for that day of the week.
We’ve discussed the fundamentals of WFM, but how do you make workforce management in your call center work for you? Here are four call center workforce management best practices worth keeping top of mind as you develop your own program:
Your workforce management program is running smoothly, and you’re collecting a ton of data. Great! Just make sure you use it strategically. Stay on top of call center workforce management fundamentals by conducting regular analyses to identify what’s working, what’s not, and where to adjust. Solid analysis will also help you develop a reliable call center workforce management forecasting program.
There are many technology tools for workforce management that you can employ to support your call center operations. This includes solutions like ADP Workforce Now, Hubstaff, Rippling, Paycor and Workday. In addition, there are a number of specific software tools designed for call centers, such as Alvaria Workforce, Assembled, and Verint Workforce Management.
You might already have other software in use in your call center that can help with many aspects of workforce management. Invoca’s conversation intelligence platform is one example. The solution assists managers in monitoring quality assurance (QA) in the call center by analyzing 100% of phone conversations with AI. This data can also help inform managers’ ongoing training programs for agents.
Call center workforce management metrics are critical, but you must be sure to use the right key performance indicators (KPIs) for benchmarking. It’s tempting to focus only on KPIs that lead to cost savings. While that’s a laudable goal and might well be a result of a good WFM program, managers should focus on the overarching goal — enhancing the customer experience.
If your agents are meeting key targets like response times, first call resolution, and Net Promoter Score (NPS), then you can feel confident your workforce management program is working.
What’s really going to boost your WFM program is your ability as a manager to develop a positive, forward-focused work culture in the call center you lead. That culture should emphasize continuous improvement, and call center workforce management training can help get you there.
You don’t have to go as far as introducing the Toyota Production System. But you can instill such a workplace culture by:
Building a successful workforce management program in a call center takes time and resources, as well as an energetic champion (you!). But the investment can be well worth it. In addition to the direct effects of workforce management — improved forecasting, agent scheduling, agent engagement and satisfaction, and better intraday management — there are very real benefits to be had, such as:
One of the most positive outcomes of effective call center workforce management forecasting is greater productivity. Workforce management in a call center requires managers to use staff and resources most efficiently. That alone can deliver rewards in the form of greater employee satisfaction, employee engagement, and employee empowerment. Agents who work happier, work better.
Another benefit of effective workforce management in call center operations is an improved customer experience. Customers want short wait times and efficient and acceptable resolution of their issues. Having the right number of agents in place at the right time to meet demand efficiently sets managers on the road to delivering superior customer satisfaction.
A key benefit of call center workforce management is that managers can deploy and reap rewards from automation. This can increase productivity by freeing managers and agents to focus more time and energy on higher-value tasks.
As an example, Invoca’s platform automatically tracks every call into the call center, records and creates a full transcript of each call, and integrates with other automated areas of the tech stack such as the customer relationship management (CRM) system. Invoca also uses artificial intelligence (AI) to objectively grade every call, not just a small sample, to provide agents with a fair performance score (and it allows managers to do their jobs with less lift).
Real-time monitoring has been elusive in call centers, but it’s possible with effective workforce management software and a plan.
The right software can detect and identify unexpected spikes in call volume automatically. Perhaps there’s been an unplanned website outage that’s driving customers to pick up the phone? Or maybe adverse weather conditions are driving customers to seek assistance?
Monitoring of call center activity can alert managers to these issues so that staffing adjustments can be made before call volume becomes a problem.
It takes time and a substantial workforce to listen to every phone call coming into the call center. Managers can’t do it alone and agents should be doing what they do best: helping customers. That makes meaningful analysis of all the data coming into the call center frustratingly elusive. If you can effectively analyze call center data, you can gain deeper and more valuable insights into your customers.
The best way to make your data gathering and analysis more productive is by automating processes and using AI to gain real-time insights from that data. Invoca’s AI call center technology is one way to do both quickly and efficiently.
Invoca’s conversation intelligence platform can help you take your workforce management program to new heights, ensuring your call center agents are more productive and delivering superior customer experiences.
Invoca’s ability to score 100% of inbound calls objectively provides teams with a complete and fair picture of agent performance. This provides a strong foundation for managers to build a motivated call center team. It provides indisputable assessments of performance and an apples-to-apples approach that takes the pressure off managers and helps agents know they are being treated fairly. That has huge implications for agent satisfaction, which can also make the manager’s job easier when trying to recruit and retain top agents.
Invoca’s complete transcripts of every call also provide call centers with a valuable workforce management training tool. Using AI prompts, managers can quickly identify where agents are sliding off the talk track — and deliver targeted advice that helps set them back on course. This can be done directly within the transcript, and the agent can be alerted to a manager’s comments immediately, meaning they can adjust on the very next call.
This up-leveling of agent performance “on the fly” is part of a call center solution that can help agents to resolve customer issues on the first try, close more inbound leads, and make the most of every customer interaction.
With Invoca and solid execution, your workforce management call center program will help ensure that your agents are never just “punching the clock” when they come to work in your call center.
Want to learn more about how Invoca can help you improve contact center workforce management? Check out these resources:
