In a previous post, we covered the issues that workforce managers reported as their top challenges for 2012. Not surprisingly, the need to balance off-phone work while maintaining service levels was a top priority for workforce management professionals as it is their job to sustain this equilibrium within the call center.
To top it off, the pressure to ensure agents complete the training (or coaching, assessments, communications, etc.) necessary to keep agents performing is compounded by the volatile nature of the call center.
In this post, we’re covering how fluctuating call center volume impacts one aspect of the workforce management professional, specifically, how often the schedule needs revision.
Of the nearly 400 workforce management professionals who responded to the survey, Eighty-five percent of respondents want the ability to better schedule/forecast and most had to revise their schedules daily or weekly. In fact, 34.7 percent report they revised forecasted schedules daily or multiple times throughout the day, while 43.9 percent revise schedules weekly or multiple times each week.
We can pinpoint the unpredictability of call volume as a reason for such frequently, and it’s the agents’ off-phone work that typically takes the back-seat to service levels, meaning the time set aside for coaching, training and reading emails needs to be rescheduled. The negative impact flows in two directions. It trickles down to the agent who ends up with less up-to-date information and time for development. And, it bubbles up to the surface view of executives when customer satisfaction scores fall.
It’s the contact center’s Catch 22. If there was just a way to add more time to the day …
