The Right Skills at the Right Time

Computerworld - How do you stay on schedule when you run 23 call centers across the U.S. and handle 40 million contacts from 6.3 million customers annually? Just ask Cox Communications Inc., the country's fourth-largest cable services provider, whose 4,000 contact center agents serve customers not only by phone, but also across a range of channels, including e-mail, chat, Web collaboration and self-service. To handle the complex job of getting the right mix of skills in the right seats at the right time, Cox relies on a workforce management suite from San Jose-based Aspect Communications Corp.

"There's an art and science to workforce management. It's about predicting call volumes and then scheduling the appropriate staff at the right times to handle those customer contacts effectively," says Denny Campbell, resource operations manager at Cox's largest call center, which is in San Diego. The Atlanta-based company's challenge is one faced by contact centers everywhere as they struggle to maximize their most costly resource—people.

According to Gartner Inc., 71% of call center costs are personnel-related. Managers must make sure they have the right agents available to ensure optimal service levels, and they must do so without over- or understaffing. Furthermore, they must increasingly schedule agents across a range of real-time and deferred contact channels, because customers demand multichannel access. They must also retain these agents in a time when call center turnover is at an alarming high, with some estimates placing it 35% annually.

Enter workforce management technology. Though not new on the scene, workforce management is generating keen interest, as contact centers recognize that delivering premium customer service depends largely on the employees delivering it. Workforce management suites typically comprise forecasting, scheduling, budgeting and reporting modules, though vendors are increasingly moving toward what analysts are dubbing "workforce optimization" by integrating components such as performance monitoring, analytics, training and incentive programs.

By utilizing forecasting techniques, contact centers can schedule optimal service levels based on agent availability and skills. Through integration with automatic call distributor (ACD) systems and multimedia contact channels, the technology routes customers to the appropriate agents, no matter how they made contact with the organization. And by enabling agents to input their own schedule preferences, managers can increase employee morale and retention rates. All this means higher productivity and, ultimately, improved customer satisfaction, according to proponents.

Fast ROI

Another argument for workforce management technologies is that, unlike some other types of customer-related software, workforce management systems are producing a fairly quick returns on investments for companies that have implemented them, says Wendy Close, CRM research director at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner.