Have you ever heard of workforce optimization? If you’re wondering what’s that and how it will benefit your work environment, then this article is written for you. Let’s break down workforce optimization into the following:
What Is It?
Workforce optimization is an effective business strategy that integrates contact center considerations and technologies to improve customer experience. It’s a way to promote the overall operational efficiency of a business. In a way, we can say that it’s a strategy that focuses on balancing service levels, customer satisfaction with other key performance metrics. Although it’s not a new concept, businesses only truly embrace its essence in the last few years.
How Does it Work?
This strategy mainly involves the following:
- Automating processes
- Leveraging information
- Data visibility
- Compliance on legislation
- Solving business-related problems
- Maximizing employee and system efficiency
- Balancing the critical factors versus the outputs
- “Working smarter”
Contact centers use WFO or workforce optimization to improve their workforce management and contact agent performance. In short, WFO describes every functional aspect and considerations of running a modern contact center such as:
- Workforce management
- Business intelligence
- Quality management
- Analytics
This type of strategy is mainly beneficial to our competitive industry. Not only does it help polish your company’s workforce system, but it also improves employee engagement and retention programs. So investing time, effort, and budget is essential if you want to achieve a “true” WFO strategy.
History
Workforce optimization is a concept created by vendors. In the early ’20s, two types of applications entered the market—first, QM or quality management used to record and evaluate conversations. Second, we have WFM or workforce management. It’s used to predict call volumes and create optimal schedules for agents.
When WFO entered, it promised a more integrated system that managed the entirety of contact agent needs. It starts from the onboarding up to the actual deployment of the agent. We can say that WFO functions as a recurring cycle.
Terms To Use
Analytics
Analytics is defined as a “systematic computational analysis” of relevant data or statistics. It’s primarily used on gathered data for:
- Discoveries
- Interpretation
- Communication
For businesses, it’s possible to apply analytics to business data to “describe, predict, and improve” business performances.
Compliance Call Recording
Compliance call recording is required legally in the process of capturing phone calls that adhere to guidelines. Although recording goals are used to improve commercial profit goals, call recording is a standard used in contact center compliance.
Contact Center Reporting
This type of reporting helps companies to take corrective measure to:
- Set internal targets
- Monitor agent performance levels
- Analyze efficiencies in various areas
- Response rate
- Overall productivity levels
Gamification
It’s a term to call the application of “game-design elements” in non-game situations. A gamification strategy involves turning a process that exists into a game to motivate and engage participants.
Voice of the Customer
Voice of the Customer (VoC) is a term used to describe a customer’s feedback about their experiences and expectations. It’s considered as a research method that’s used to collect a customer’s feedback.
Quality Management
It involves overseeing all relevant activities and tasks that are needed to maintain a certain level of excellence. Quality management includes the determination of the following:
- Quality policy
- Quality planning and assurance
- Quality control
- Quality improvement
Workforce Management
We can define workforce management as an “integrated set of processes” that the organization uses to optimize employee productivity. It involves effectively predicting:
- Labor requirements
- Creating and managing employee schedules
Optimization
When we say “optimization,” it means how a company fully invests in the right technologies and relevant tools for growth. It doesn’t mean only allotting the effort to maximize the processes and systems but also the employees.
