Due to the situation created by COVID-19 Contact Center companies have had to adapt their business model and their services. This situation made many companies adopt remote working in record time for their daily tasks. That is how Contact Centers have been transformed. They have gone from “panicking” to adapting their activities to remote working thanks to technology, taking the office to the agent’s home.
Currently, we are going through a phase in which certain operations are returning to platforms. But we see and understand clearly, that remote working is possible. And this, remote working, poses as an important way to reduce costs while increasing benefits.
For that reason, remote working has become the perfect ally for Contact Centers, more so in times of crisis, when what really matters is to continue operating as always regardless of the location.
Still, although this working style presents an opportunity, operation management processes need special attention. Aspects like a lack of monitoring, absence of control and service quality, or even the decrease in an agent’s motivation. Taking all these into account, and to face all the challenges that remote working poses for Contact Centers, we are going to show you what Smart Staff Optimization (SSO) is and how to secure the success of your remote agents with this strategy
Smart Staff Optimization (SSO)
The success of a remote operation relies on two important aspects. Having adequate technology, and controlling correctly daily operations. Some clients have told us about them operating remotely, yet they do not know or are not sure of how to tackle the challenges that arise when carrying out their activities. Challenges such as:
- The lack of supervision and monitoring of agents.
- The absence of commitment and motivation of employees.
- Difficulty to evaluate the quality of their work.
- Communication is less fluid, as there is no face-to-face interaction.
That is why Smart Staff Optimization is born. It is a tool package created to deal adequately with the challenges of a Contact Center operating remotely. This strategy opens a window of opportunities to be effective and succeed in working remotely in a Contact Center.
But which tool should I use to manage remotely the entire operation?
There are 5 tools that will improve the success of your agents working remotely.
Workforce Management
Till today, it is generally believed there is a connection between the worker’s productivity and the physical location of its supervisor. However, implementing the right tool can deliver the highest level of working remotely.
Workforce Management is a tool that allows monitoring and tracking of day-to-day activities. It provides all that is needed to effectively manage the staff, forecasts demand, automatically creates chronograms, develop precise and insightful reports, and improve the overall customer service.
With this tool, you can achieve dimensioning, forecast, and resource allocation in real-time. You can know who is available and which are the person’s skills, leveraging resources and demand, as well as reducing absenteeism.
In short, it is about providing the Contact Center with the tools to meet the demand for services according to the incoming traffic on any channel. Appropriate dimensioning guarantees the achievement of all operation KPI’s.
Read more about Workforce Management here
Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence tools in a Contact Center help make decisions based on data and information from clients to align well with the business.
Even now, when remote working, this solution allows you to visualize and share data dynamically and in real-time. Regardless of where the daily activities are taking place or which device is being used.
BI tools provide consolidated data and unified information. It gives the power of knowledge, with precise and valuable information regarding customer journey and experience. All this to help transform information into knowledge for better decision making.
The same way, it improves efficiency and productivity by adequating contacting strategies or customer service. It is possible to provide dashboards linked to the new reality, and therefore, allowing better identification of the root cause of interaction and focus on the client and his or her experience.
Read more about Business Intelligence here.
Quality Management Systems
Measuring quality is fundamental in the Contact Center business, and even more for those working remotely. Quality Management Systems continuously evaluates interactions between agents and clients with the goal of giving feedback and obtaining insights for service improvement.
This tool offers features such as Multichannel recording (voice and data), multiple screens recording, speech analytics, and speech to text. Quality Management Suite allows supervisors to monitor agents in real-time, without disturbing them
This tool allows the detection of an agent’s shortcomings and therefore, the possibility to offer the agent personalized training in that which needs strengthening. Regular feedback through quality supervising is provided, while agents receive training to increase their motivation and retention.
Gamification
Keeping your agents motivated and committed is primordial in this current situation. And here is where Gamification plays an important role in Contact Centers.
Gamification is one of the strongest tools that can be used in a Contact Center in order to train agents efficiently and increase their level of commitment to the organization.
Implementing a gamification tool in a Contact Center favors skills acquisition and build capacities.
Equally important, thanks to this tool, it is possible to measure objectively competences to motivate agents to perform better their tasks and thus, fine-tune their skills.
In order words, gamification enables:
- Motivate agents through steady progress and goal achievement.
- Recognize performance excellency and incentive participation.
- Generate friendly competition between colleagues.
- Favor new skills acquisition.
To recapitulate, with a gamification tool it is possible to generate emotions tied to positive experiences for the agents. It also helps the learning process by rewarding their effort, and it stimulates productivity.
Read more about Gamification here.
Vidyo
Having the right tools for video collaboration when working remotely enables better management and execution of everyday tasks, as well as simplifying organizational processes.
One simply cannot refute the power of video communication with agents. Among its benefits are:
- Direct communication and face-to-face interaction, which is more effective compared to other channels.
- Reduction of the sense of isolation or uncertainty between agents and the supervisor.
- More agile communication.
- Time optimization.
- Higher productivity.
With this tool, it is possible to create more direct, efficient, and faster connections. Those involved in the video conference can read the other person’s body language and comprehend better their expressions. This way, communication is made easier and it builds trust among the agents and with the supervisor.
Without a doubt, digital transformation has changed drastically. For instance, six in 10 Spanish companies plan a digital transformation for the entirety of their company.
This situation becomes a valuable opportunity for Contact Center companies. This is the possibility to decentralize operations, onboard multi-language qualified professionals from anywhere in the world, and motivate the agents’ performance.
Working remotely can be as efficient as working at your business facilities. To achieve it, you just need to count on having the right tools.
Implementing this specific tool package, Smart Staff Optimization (SSO) will allow you to manage correctly the Contact Center when working remotely. Facilitating operation monitoring, carrying out timely and continuous KPI’s follow-up, and ensuring the quality of service delivery and motivation of the agents.
For more information about Smart Staff Optimization, fill out the form and we will get in touch with you promptly.
