Contact centers are characterized as human capital intensive companies, so a large part of their costs are related to the company’s personnel, mainly agents. Even so, did you know that almost 50% of contact centers lack adequate resources for workforce optimization? Many still use excel templates for scheduling and activity planning, which makes managers and supervisors spend too much time on calculations and manual tasks, making the task more tiring, exposing them to errors and rework.
So that perception of saving money with the use of Excel as a tool to organize the workforce is a total deception since, in the end, it ends up being more costly the investment of time in correcting human failures. Although Microsoft Excel was a positive solution for workforce management in the past, modern technology allows us to go a step further to obtain faster and more accurate data and better results.
Let’s talk about the problem with excel…
The idea is not to badmouth excel, far from it. In fact, it has been a tool that for many years has helped many companies. Especially contact centers, creating or modifying schedules, visualizing project assignments, and using formulas to automate complicated calculations. In addition, Excel is generally easy to use and requires little training or preparation to implement.
However, there is a point at which this tool meets its life cycle, as it limits corporate growth. As your company grows, it will need to increase the number of tasks and items it controls with workforce management. Which becomes a costly and complicated task when you have to manually enter data into Excel.
What are the main mistakes that can happen to you with excel?
- Manually entering long lists of data increases the risk of errors, leading to missed deadlines and costly repairs.
- Eliminating the manual entry required by Excel frees up the labor costs involved in this process.
- Companies can save time and money by automating workflow management instead of dedicating staff to Excel data entry.
- Excel focuses only on numbers and does not take other factors into account, which can lead to oversights.
The solution lies in automating workforce management in the contact center
In the case of contact centers, it is more than necessary to have a tool that has the right technology to ensure productivity control. This includes maintaining the number of personnel necessary to meet the operational demand, always maintaining the quality of service, and developing work schedules properly.
To improve this process, we have the Enghouse Workforce Management (WFM) tool, which allows us to make a working forecast, continuously follow up to obtain an analysis of the professional capabilities and metrics of each employee. It also helps to reduce administrative costs.
Implementing this tool in your Contact Center you will achieve:
- Control staff schedules (attendance, time off, vacations, leaves, etc.).
- Improve service levels without increasing operating costs, by reducing periods of lack or excess of staff.
- Reduce workforce costs by more than 20% while maintaining service levels.
- Improve agent productivity by 30%, thanks to clear target setting and metrics, performance feedback, and greater scheduling flexibility.
- Analyze atypical scenarios and be prepared for unforeseen situations.
- Increase agent occupancy by 5-7%.
- Monitor the performance of your agents, obtaining in detail the actual KPIs.
In addition, WFM allows you to create forecasts based on what-if scenarios to test these hypotheses and get a preview of the impact these situations could have on your service levels and your customers. Do you know what would happen in your contact center if there was a sudden increase in call volume? Or what would happen if your attrition unexpectedly doubled? What if you change your service level objectives? Our tool will help you understand the impact of these different scenarios and determine whether you need to call for overtime or cancel some offline activities, for example.
Automating workforce management in the contact center = thinking about agents
By automating contact center workforce management (WFM), you help agents feel in control and reduce stress. You allow them to participate directly in their work schedules. They can easily swap shifts with their colleagues, mark when they are available for overtime and vacation requests, and receive instant, rules-based decisions.
As we move into a hybrid work world, supporting your agents must remain at the top of the business agenda. Keep them happy, motivated, and productive through a combination of the right culture, processes, and technology that take care of their mental and physical health.
If you want to learn more about all the benefits of our WFM tool, just click the button.
