Proper forecasting and accurate scheduling are critical to the success of your contact center. But accurate scheduling, by design, doesn’t leave much room for error and puts most contact centers dangerously close to the edge in terms of being over-staffed or under-staffed. Given the random nature of the arrival of contacts, being ‘right-staffed’ can be a fleeting concept. More often than not, you will have too many or too little agents available to address current demand. Add in the normal daily chaos and it’s easy to see why even the most accurate schedules can become misaligned pretty quickly.

 

Monitoring agent and overall contact center performance are equally important to success. Daily performance reports provide good historical analysis, and allow you to adjust your going-forward planning, but they do little in terms of addressing issues when they are most important – when a customer is engaged and the customer satisfaction meter is ticking. In an environment where CSAT score goals are set high and speed of service is measure in seconds, it’s easy to see how success in achieving your objectives can be quickly jeopardized.

 

Addressing issues in workforce and performance are moment-to-moment requirements that can’t wait until the next day. They require real-time information, analysis and action. To ensure that consistent, satisfying experiences are delivered, processes must be in place to: