WFM Process
The Forecast is Always Wrong
“If your forecasters were the sort of people who could precisely nail the outcomeof a random, chaotic, complex system, day in and day out, then they wouldn’t be forecasting your call centre. They would be playing the euro-millions lottery for 5 minutes every Friday and spending the rest of the time cruising the shores of [...]
7 Best Practice Tips for Contact Center Vacation Planning
‘Tis the season to start thinking about next year’s vacation plan. No, I’m not talking about YOUR vacation plan (although you need to start thinking about that, too). I’m talking about the vacation plan for your contact center agents. What!?! You don’t do vacation planning at your contact center? Whoa! Then this article is coming [...]
Measuring the Cost of Lost Time in Your Contact Center
Contrary to what agents may believe, you really don’t know where they are and what they’re doing the entire time they’re supposed to be working. Every day, there is a portion of time that is truly…lost. I use the term “lost” because you cannot account for the time. People who were supposed to be handling [...]
Schedule Adherence that Sticks
We don’t often have the luxury of dictating when our customers calls us. So it stands to reason that, ultimately, Workforce Management only “works” if our agents are doing WHAT we need them to do WHEN we need them to do it. Sure, we can spend countless hours perfecting our forecast. We can create a [...]
Schedule Trade Restrictions: What’s the Point?
In the break room of my first call center, we had a bulletin-board that agents used primarily to solicit schedule trades. As I recall, it seemed as though every week some baby’s birthday party was in jeopardy because of a less-than-desirable schedule UNLESS some kind soul was willing to trade. Suffice it to say our agents would [...]
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