Workforce management software systems have become increasingly accepted as part of the every call center manager's tool kit. Today's competitive business environments and lack of available agents are creating increased pressure to meet service objectives and optimally utilize the call centers most expensive resource, the agents. No one would argue the logic and the impact of having the right number of people on the phones at the right time. ROI analysis makes a very compelling argument for meeting this objective.

Administrative timesaving - generated by comparing manual or semi-automated methods to automated data collection, processing, management and information distribution Reduced payroll related expenses - generated by either doing the same amount of work with less people or doing more work at the same level of service with the same number of agents Decreased telecommunications costs - generated by reducing the average speed of answer through more efficient schedules Increased Revenues - (in revenue environments) - generated by taking more calls with the same number of resources through increased scheduling efficiency.

All of this adds up to increased levels and consistency of customer service and optimal utilization of resources.

The numbers can be truly staggering with justification occurring in weeks or a few months in centers of any significant size. In revenue generating centers, the figures are even more impressive. "Workforce management software, Let's get it today!" is echoing through the halls of call centers around the world. No question about that, but what is really happening with customers who make the commitment and invest in these systems?

Our perspective is that the users of these powerful systems experience a broad spectrum of success. An important lesson is that simply purchasing a workforce management system does not guarantee the kinds of returns potentially available. Our research indicates that a significant number of centers are simply leaving the bulk of the benefits available from these powerful tools in the server. This article explores why this occurs and what you can do to make sure that no matter what system you install, you achieve greater than minimal success.

Once a call center is convinced that implementing a workforce management system is a great idea, the real fun begins. It would be a positive step for your team to analyze and document the flow and processes of the existing methods of forecasting, scheduling, reporting and operations. The exercise will define the specific requirements and indicate the shortcomings of the manual or semi-automated methods, forcing the team to understand what feature functionality is most important to the centers agents, supervisors and management. This is not the case in most centers though and the first step usually is to bring in the workforce management software vendors for demonstration.

We would like to go on record and say that all of the noted vendors offer a center that is semi-automated a tremendous vehicle for moving forward a workforce management strategy that greatly improves the efficiency and level of service provided by the center. (This is not about whose product is better for what particular application, an article in itself!) This article is about being successful at implementing the tool.

Software presentations have real value in the context of the environment of the audience. It is very important that prior to the sizzling software demonstration that the vendor asks the questions about what is causing your center the greatest concern in terms of workforce management and visibly demonstrate their products ability to address those specific issues.

The fact is though that sales people and the companies they represent neither have the time or the resources to analyze and understand the nuances of your business environment and culture and present their product in that context. They are equipped to sell what they have been taught differentiates them from the competition. They are also compensated to sell faster not better.

This approach leads to a feature war based on what each vendor knows they do differently from the other guys and the first and quick impressions of someone in the demonstration audience. What we now have is a decision being set-up based on a vendor's ability to provide any number of differentiating features such as:

Real-time agent adherence information from the customers ACD Easy data manipulation and smoothing for forecasting purposes Access to the systems information over the internet

These are clearly generally worthwhile capabilities to offer. It is important to add that these differentiating features may or may not have any value to the application. For example, Real time adherence may be deployed in a call center that does not provide the resource to monitor the information. It may also be deployed in an environment where the agent population is made of highly paid specialists that address callers with wildly varying AHT's that simply make real time adherence information nearly irrelevant. There are different types of adherence information available and it is important to understand which metric and interval coincides with your culture. The point of this discussion though is to show how a buying decision could be based on a feature that does not "fit" the environment.

Another common error occurs when the decision for a workforce management system is made "outside of the box" of the people that will actually be affected by and whose responsibility it is to use the product. The workforce management decision is in fact a committee decision to be made in the context of the meeting the objectives of the center. The resulting decision includes input from executive management, call center directors, managers, supervisors, analysts and agents. It is essential that the new scheduling system not be perceived as part of a conspiracy to take something away from the agents that they have enjoyed. Making representative agents part of the evaluation team will educate them and show that the system is a means to fairly distribute the workload and provide the best possible service to the customers.

Some keys to insuring a successful workforce management software evaluation include:

Develop clear understanding the centers business culture Understanding the objectives and metrics for success of the system Get everyone involved in the due diligence process, form a team Document the current process flow Developing clear workforce management system requirements from all levels of the organization for
Forecasting
Scheduling
Reporting
Identify who is going to use and access the system Define the desired benefits you expect to achieve State the metric results for success, i.e. 20% decrease in telecommunications costs.

Now that you know what you want to achieve and what your unique challenges are you can develop a request for proposal within the context of this understanding. Your RFP should focus on the key features that make your call center unique. Unique forecasting and scheduling requirements are the biggest challenges for the major providers. The systems are designed to be flexible so they can be applied to a variety of applications. Be assured though that not every system approaches the same problem the same way. The answer "yes" to, can the system do this, is simply insufficient.

Whether you create an RFP or not you are still off to better start if you complete this exercise of understanding. Either way, at worst case, you will end up with a system that is just right for you in one area, pretty solid in another and presents a work around solution for another. That is fine because the bottom line is that the compared to the old method, any automated tool offers huge advantages, even if it is cumbersome in places. You will also know what success really means for your center.

OVERCOME CULTURAL RESISTANCE - ACCELERATE CHANGE

It takes time to assimilate new skills and technology in any environment. Accept this but intelligently accelerate the change. The first step to accelerating the change is to automate the process with which you have been inefficiently scheduling for years. Yes, you read that correctly. This is not a bad thing because if you are the scheduler who has been pulling their hair out over dozens and dozens of spreadsheets for months trying to generate schedules for say 175 people you are, in heaven. An important step in completing the ROI is behind you - you can quantify the administrative time savings.

Call centers that do not have automated workforce management systems tend to schedule by group or team. Lots of people disjointedly creating schedules without any perspective to the overall needs of the center. This creates and interesting and less than optimal environment. There is real power for the people creating schedules. They rule their agent's lives and a cookie here and a favor there may make for some interesting relationships that do not necessarily improve the level of service. The people that have had the power may resent their perceived "loss of control" and agents may feel a sense cold, calculating computer invasion into their worlds. The result could be resentment and fear.

This is why it is critical to get all levels of the organization involved in the purchasing cycle. Buy in is essential for not only will you fail, individuals may even apply effort to resists success. We have been in environments where analysts insists that they perform just as well as the groups that are using an automated scheduling solution. Due to a lack of education in both groups their service level achievement is the same. Thus, the case is made to shelve the product due to ongoing expense and effort for no return. The product "does not work for us" is the perception and it becomes "shelf-ware." This is not that far fetched a scenario.

There are tremendous and valid concerns that new schedules will shock the agent population into mass desertion to the center down the street that is more sensitive. Often times, introducing change to the agent population to increase the efficiency is the most difficult challenge of all. In fact the tool should be used to increase sensitivity and increase efficiency.

Case in point. As you bring in new hires offer them schedules that make the most sense for your coverage. This way change is introduced slowly through attrition and the expectations of the agents are appropriate for their position. This will take time turnover of 20 percent is not unusual making for a rather rapid cultural change in the interests of the customers and operational efficiency of the center.

Also ask for volunteers for new schedules that will help your center. You may be surprised at the number of people that will embrace change or that the schedule just happens to work perfect for that person.

You can now begin to ask questions and set-up scheduling parameters that evolve your center into one of greater efficiency and increased levels and consistency of customer service.

EXPLOIT THE TECHNOLOGY AND INFORMATION

One of the greatest aspects of installing workforce management system is the fact that you have the data you need to ask very serious questions, and get very enlightening answers. Be curious. The system will not break. Get input from your WFM focus group that includes the team that made the decision on product. This includes agent representation!

Ask questions like:

How much sick time, late time, etc. accrued in the Customer Service Group in the first quarter?
How accurate is the forecast we get from marketing?
What schedules should we offer the new hires?
Why don't we rotate holiday schedules?
Are my people actually adhering to the schedules I create and assign?
What would happen to service levels if we moved a small percentage of our workforce over to 4/10 shifts?
What would be the impact of increasing the window in which our staff could go to lunch?
How many people do I need to hire if our call volume increases 35% next year?
What would happen if the new application increased our agents AHT by 20 seconds per call?
At what point does hiring more people not make any sense in terms of increasing my level of service?
What would human resources do with the data we have on agent log-in and log-out times?
What would be the impact of combining my sales and service queues?
If all calls from our other call center where suddenly rerouted here, how would we perform? When is the best time to schedule our weekly supervisory meeting, this week?

This data maps out the road for evolving your call center to optimum efficiency.

COMPLETE THE ROI

First and foremost, complete the ROI, as you institute optimization changes. What has been the tangible, quantifiable benefit achieved by optimizing with the product? Have your met your objectives for success? This will propel your team forward and facilitate positive changes by making your team aware of increased efficiency that has not yet been exploited.

Measure against the quantifiable goals of increased efficiency across the ROI spectrum

DEPLOY THE INFORMATION

Traditional models for workforce management deployment call for an analysts or technician to "run" the workforce management system. If you ask a call center manager or director a question about their workforce management software you can expect this response, "RJ runs the software and whenever I have a question, I go to him." This reality is evolving somewhat as systems themselves become less technical and more user friendly and "open." The primary vendors have just embraced WindowsTM standards as of their latest releases and many now use Crystal ReportsTM for the reporting engine.

The author sees one of the biggest challenges for the vendors as getting the information from the application into the minds of those who need it most. The products though often require extensive training and managers are perceived as simply too valuable to take time for workforce manager application training.

If the "RJ scenario" is in place then the question becomes is the source empowered to make decisions based on the information at his disposal? Usually, he or she is not. So the effect of this lack of deployment means that the most important information to the supervisors and managers is funneled to a single point of contact. Managers need to be familiar with the product and comfortable enough to get the information they really need now. This challenge lies with the providers and the users.

DOCUMENT THE NEW PROCESS FLOW

Once you have rolled out the product it is equally important to document the new processes for:

Forecasting
Scheduling
Schedule dissemination
Schedule exception reporting and tracking
Day of Operation Procedures

This will help you identify more opportunity with the product and ingrain procedures to deliver on-going efficiency. It will also prepare you for when, inevitably, your newly trained workforce management resources move on.

You should also evaluate and set up threshold indicators for deviating from an existing plan. Workforce management software provides excellent tools to recognize daily trends and allow you to optimize your resources. You will be able to be prepared for and take advantage of unexpected deviations in call volume.

STAY COMMITTED TO THE TOOL

Workforce management is a philosophy and a process, not a PC that sits on somebody's desk. It requires commitment and vision to constantly strive for the optimal use of your resources and exceed your customer's expectations. By selecting and implementing a system considering the perspective and information in this article, you will increase the level of success that your organization will experience.

WorkForce Management Implementation: Increasing Your Level of Success