Scheduling

Ensuring that staff schedules remain in line with business needs is vital to success, but juggling scheduling rules, contracts, shift patterns, flexible working hours and ever-changing requirements presents a huge challenge if you manage them manually.

Automatic scheduling systems allow you to create and manage an effective schedule by taking into account your business requirements, your employees’ needs and your scheduling rules.

at First Glance

The enlightened enterprise takes agent preferences and skill sets into account when scheduling. The “standard agent” approach to solving resource issues (i.e. treating one agent the same as any other) will cause problems with both agent satisfaction and customer service levels.

Most companies using advanced workforce management software will have between six and nine skill-sets to work with, although a few contact centres use as many as 50.

Yet the business’s needs must come first, so a scheduler will have to find the best way to match the company’s requirements with those of its employees.

This can get particularly complicated in a multimedia environment which usually has agents with multiple media handling skills (e.g. voice, email, text chat, etc.) and multiple business abilities (e.g. sales, service, product knowledge, languages, etc.).

Businesses must look for a solution which does not over-simplify the scheduling process, yet retains usability and the flexibility to make changes.

Solutions that allow agents to request and alter their own schedules (for example, around holidays) are becoming increasingly sought-after, as they have also been proven to strengthen agent morale.

Making sure that your scheduling suits both your staff and your business brings a number of benefits:

• Enhanced efficiency and lower costs through consistent and timely planning based on business needs
• Greater customer satisfaction as a result of improved service
• Automation of administration, freeing managers and planners to do what they do best
• Automatic monitoring