Workforce management systems for multimedia centers

WFM solutions will become a key CRM-enabling technology in the multimedia call/contact center. It is an application that may provide a solution to both agent attrition and multimedia staffing. Businesses will be able to provide the right agents to the right customer and to leverage customer segmentation for a superior level of customer service. Without a means of accurately forecasting how much human resource will be needed to keep customers and agents satisfied while keeping costs to a minimum, businesses could have every sophisticated e-application available but fail to reach an acceptable service level.

The cost of running a contact/call center is considerable in most enterprises, and the center traditionally has been viewed as a cost center—a necessary evil. This perception has resulted in keeping expenditures on technology, people, and business processes to a minimum. The advent of the CRM approach and its impact on call centers, and vice versa, have meant that leading businesses in sectors such as financial services, retail, and telecommunications are beginning to view their contact centers as profit generators. Revenue growth is encouraged through cross selling and upselling support, and costs are kept low through implementing solutions such as IVR, predictive dialers, and other technologies that have been developed to streamline call center operations.

In the multimedia contact center, as in the traditional call center, the aim of workforce management software is to have the right agents available to help customers at the right time. A sophisticated yet easy-to-use solution, this software has become one of the most useful tools currently available to a call/contact center manager, from both the customer satisfaction and agent retention perspectives. Although WFM is not a total solution, it enables the business to resource the center as it wishes. The key attribute of superior workforce management software is its flexibility, particularly in a multimedia environment. The advent of CRM and multimedia customer contacts means that WFM is destined to play an increasingly important role in most major call/contact centers, supporting both the management of multimedia interactions and also allowing businesses to focus on customers' needs and resource the center effectively.

As previously noted, despite a relatively low profile in the past, interest in workforce management solutions has begun to grow. Leading companies are learning that there are major savings to be realized with WFM as well as opportunities to increase customer and agent satisfaction in a relatively cost-effective manner. Before WFM became available, call center managers spent days at a time working out agent staffing schedules with only a computer spreadsheet to help. A complex task requiring a great degree of skill to perform, the schedule was prone to error through last-minute changes of circumstance, lack of historical data, or plain human mistakes. Even when successfully accomplished, the level of detail and accuracy in the schedule often left something to be desired.