Workforce Optimization

Workplace practices and strategies are an integral part of running a company, no matter the department. For contact centers, one key practice to use is workforce optimization or WFO. Implementing the integrated solutions and processes that fall underneath workplace optimization is key to maximizing employee productivity, and efficiency, and to better the customer experience all around.

What is Workforce Optimization?

Workforce optimization can be described as a blanket term that covers a range of processes for running a contact center. It is a strategy that involves automating processes, employee management, agent performance, business intelligence, customer retention, and overall promotion of operational efficiency. The concept is far-reaching and significantly broad, which is why workforce optimization can apply differently depending on the business or company aspect it is being applied.

Play Video

Workforce Optimization in the Contact Center

How you optimize the workforce, as mentioned previously, depends on the business arena you’re applying workforce optimization strategies. For the contact center, workforce optimization applies with technologies such as an Interactive Voice Response system (IVR). By implementing IVR, the prompts and menus are designed with the customer in mind, enabling them to easily get the information they need as intuitively as possible. By excluding a live agent from routine information gathering, the strategy saves the company money and time, with time being saved for the customer as well. Technologies like the Automatic Call Distribution system or implementing an omnichannel experience to better the customer’s journey are excellent examples of workforce optimization in the contact center.

The ability for these disjointed systems to become streamlined and part of the whole customer journey, as well as enhance the efficiency and abilities of agents, is optimizing the workforce, the core of WFO.

Workforce Optimization
Software Automation

Implementing workforce optimization in the contact center is supported by software that generally automates various components to maximize the quality, efficiency, and productivity of the center’s agents:

Performance
Management

Learn More

These systems help to develop and engage agents by allowing instant visibility of performance, and giving real-time data.

Workforce
Management

Learn More

This software supports the call center's scheduling and forecasting functions, to better help manage labor costs and provide a better customer experience.

Quality
Monitoring

Learn More

These monitoring applications record calls and conversations on digital channels, allowing management to store and assess interactions agents have with customers. The contact center analytics given through the quality monitoring software allows for self-evaluations and agent-accessible contact center reporting.

Workforce optimization is more than applied concepts, it’s a multi-prong approach that betters the efficiency of agents while enhancing the customer’s journey through the tools used and streamlined.

Benefits to the Workforce and Customer

WFO in the contact center delivers different tools that both optimize your workforce and unify the process and operations into a single platform. The provides several benefits in a myriad of ways:

Strengthens the Customer Experience: by reviewing data sourced from the agent analytics, you can find opportunities to improve employee performance and schedule agents better based on volume trends collected.
Reduces Operational Costs: By managing workflows across the different functions through one unified platform, you can enhance the entire contact center’s performance which saves dollars in terms of time and increases efficiency throughout the office.
Improving Engagement: By using the data and analytics gathered via WFO software, you’re able to model and customize your center’s processes and workflow. This can optimize agent scheduling, coaching, and how feedback is delivered and used while providing the opportunity to personalize training and evaluations.
Saving Time: Workforce optimization centers on the unification of processes and tools into a single platform to better operations for both the customer and the contact center. By doing this, managers can focus on improving operations with clear data rather than spending time sourcing information from disconnected tools or solution software.

Give Your Customers
Everything They Expect

Optimize Your Workforce

Workforce optimization is a key to competing in the modern business landscape, and no matter the size of your contact center, it can benefit from the enhanced productivity, efficiency, and unification WFO brings to both your agents and your customers. Collecting data on calls, how different processes work, and agent behavior allows the contact center to make customer data-driven decisions that affect many aspects of the day-to-day, from brand alignment to employee engagement and sales acceleration to operational efficiency.

With Cerium Networks, we provide contact center solutions that are personalized across all touchpoints for customers and the agents who assist them. Discover how we implement workforce optimization and bring the benefits to your contact center.

Workforce Optimization

What is Workforce Optimization?

Workforce Optimization in the Contact Center