Top Trends In Workforce Optimization (WFO) – CX Today Roundtable

When agent engagement is low and productivity stutters, dusting off the contact center WFO playbook is a tried-and-tested play.

Service leaders may introduce a new schedule flexibility lever, assess and address agent performance trends, or perhaps kickstart a gamification initiative.

Such actions often drive employee experience gains. Yet, many operations may require a more drastic approach - a revolution of WFO, not a sluggish evolution.

Our experts explore their options, casting an eye over the biggest trends touching the CX space.

This month, our roundtable panelists include:

• Andrea Matsuda, Manager of Product Marketing, & Lilach Zemach, Director of Product Management at NICE
• Rakesh Tailor, VP of Product Management at Genesys
• Dave Hoekstra, WFO Product Evangelist at Calabrio

Below, they paint of picture of how forward-thinking contact centers are taking the WFO bull by its horns and achieving better agent outcomes.

What Is the Biggest Trend You’re Seeing in Workforce Management Right Now?

Matsuda: As digital channels have multiplied, so has the demand for multi-skilled contact center agents. Indeed, 95 percent of agents handle both digital and voice concurrently, at least some of the time. Moreover, agents – on average - may work across 3.2 channels simultaneously.

[caption id="attachment_48447" align="alignright" width="100"] Andrea Matsuda[/caption]

During peak periods, these agents provide flexibility and capacity when needed most.

Nevertheless, this has created a pressurized KPI-driven environment where burnout amongst agents is high. As such, businesses must urgently consider how they mitigate this problem and support reps in doing so.

AI and machine learning are bridging this gap. The tech is helping to pair contact center workers with the tasks their skills best align with, automate mundane tasks, and manage less-desirable shifts.

Tailor:

Employees want the flexibility to dictate their schedules in a way that best fits their life, and companies are becoming more open to this style of work.

As a result, more organizations must consider solutions that work for agents both in a more rigid environment - with fixed schedules - but also in more fluid settings.

After all, engaged agents drive excellent customer outcomes, so ensuring they have the autonomy to manage their own schedules while meeting their commitments to the company is where the workforce is heading.

Hoekstra: WFM addresses two of the top contact center workplace challenges: the operational difficulty of hybrid working and high agent attrition.

How? Well, the latest WFM solutions can wrap schedules around new agent preferences in complex hybrid-working, multi-channel environments.

Moreover, hybrid reporting allows planners to fully analyze their hybrid/remote situation and see who works best where rather than trying to remember as they assess performance.

Meanwhile, app-based self-service scheduling empowers agents with flexibility and control. They can quickly add days of work, move breaks or lunches, and trade partial-day shifts anytime, anywhere, using their mobile devices, without needing to run through a complicated approval process.

All this happens within seconds, making the process more efficient and agent-friendly.

Conversations with Calabrio’s customers indicate that agent-self-scheduling usage has skyrocketed – up 200 percent - in the last 12 months.

What Is the Biggest Trend You’re Seeing in Quality Assurance Right Now?

Zemach: The use of digital channels for customer support is surging, and - generally speaking - this has brought many benefits.

Respondents in a recent NICE survey suggest that efficiency (84 percent), agent quality (63 percent), and customer satisfaction (62 percent) have improved as a result of adopting new support channels.

However, there is a disconnect in the way this is measured.

While 73 percent of agents believe their performance is measured by channel-specific KPIs, only 31 percent of managers agree.

These statistics suggest that agents don’t recognize that the contact center is not measuring their performance accurately.

As such, while digital is the way forward, QA leaders seemingly still track performance with traditional telemetry-based metrics, likely measuring agents on speed and quantity.

Unfortunately, these are often incompatible with digital interactions - specifically asynchronous ones. These may occur over several days and at the customer’s pace, regardless of the agent’s efficiency.

Tailor: Through conversational intelligence and modern advancements in machine learning - i.e., embedding, conformers, large language models, etc. - organizations can gain a more holistic view of customer experience and agent performance.

Indeed, contact centers can leverage new insights that feed quality management programs and more advanced gamification initiatives to inspire agent development, engagement, and motivation.