February 2001

Use The (Work) Force, Luke

BY Tom Keating

Workforce management solutions came about when scheduling work shifts within large call centers became too unwieldy for a call center manager to handle. Imagine having to schedule 50 agents, each with their own preferred days or shifts, some part-time and some full-time. Then factor in sick days, vacation days, lunch breaks, union-defined minimum number of hours, and various other factors -- it becomes every call center manager's worst nightmare! The old way of doing it is to use a spreadsheet to figure out the weekly schedule. Many call center managers still do it this way.

Most call center managers now realize the important of implementing a workforce management solution that will not only eliminate the manual process, which is time-consuming and prone to human error, but also save the call center money by more accurately predicting the required agents for any particular day, or even a particular hour! Many of these solutions start with just a few agents at 6 a.m. EST and then ramp up to several more agents by 9 a.m., peaking around lunchtime, and then tapering off again to just a few agents at night, when call volume is low. Of course, every call center is different and is affected by time zone, the products they sell, and other factors (infomercial-type products are one exception). In any event, by "meshing" part-time works with full-time works and factoring in which agents have certain skills and which do not, the workforce management software can achieve remarkable service levels, while preventing over-labor charges as well as under-labor charges.

Choosing a workforce management solution to suit your needs is no easy task, so I devised a list of features to look for when choosing a good solution. Use my Top 10 suggestions as a guide when querying various vendors.

1) Separate service level quotas for each type of communication. For example, a phone call may require a 30 second response time, a fax may require a 2 hour response time, and an e-mail may only require a 24 hour response time. Make sure that the workforce management software you choose is flexible enough to support service levels for VoIP, chat, and any future contact types.

2) "What if" scenarios. This is often a key feature of good workforce management software products. The more complex software products actually factor in the skills of an agent, which I believe is very important for one simple reason -- not all agents are created equal. Suppose Agent A calls in sick, but has only two months of experience and a limited skill set. This won't impact the call center's service level as much as if Agent B, who has 5 years of experience and a large range of skills, were to call in sick.

3) Enterprise-wide scheduling and configuration. With call centers often scattered (disparate locations, virtual call centers, and remote agents), this feature is critical. This feature becomes even more important as integration between the brick-and-mortar world and the dot-com world takes place.

Let's take the example of a company with both a brick-and-mortar presence and a dot-com presence. I'll call it ACME for lack of a better name. Assume ACME has hundreds of retail stores across the country and hundreds of agents handling orders from visitors to their Web site. Each brick-and-mortar store should be able to define its own schedule parameters. An ACME store in the middle of Manhattan would certainly require more resources than an ACME store in a small city in Nebraska.

Regardless of the definition and parameters assigned to each brick-and-mortar store, an enterprise view should also be available. This would allow a CEO to see exactly what is happening within the entire organization. Utilizing an enterprise view, a CEO could easily identify the growth areas in the brick-and-mortar arena. He might deem it necessary to open a new store where there is large growth. From that same enterprise view, the CEO could see what dates resulted in heavy volume, both in the dot-com world and the brick-and-mortar world. From this, the CEO could see if any correlation exists between the two worlds. For instance, if there is a huge upsurge in purchases made on the Web site, this may result in a huge upsurge (a few days later) in employees required at the retail stores (since returns and exchanges will no doubt increase).

4) Security for specific information. A call center manager may not want another call center manager in another location viewing her service levels or changing the scheduling criteria. The workforce management software should have security in place to allow or disallow certain personnel from viewing or changing specific information. However, certainly, a CEO would enjoy the ability to raise or lower service levels on a global or local level.

5) Tight integration with your ACD. This feature seems pretty obvious, but some products do this better than others. The more data fields the workforce management software supports from the ACD, the better. Most support direct communication to the ACD, while others require that you export and import the data daily. Real-time communication will result in more accurate analysis and predictive resource scheduling. For example, with real-time access to ACD call volume, if the workforce management software detects abnormally low traffic from 8 a.m.12 p.m., it may recommend to the supervisor that some agents be sent home early. Not all workforce management solutions can do intra-day "on the fly" modification of the resources. If this feature is important to you, be sure to ask the vendor if it is available in the software package you are considering.

6) "Neural network" intelligence. Products with this feature utilize past data (typically at least one year of data is required) along with artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the accurate prediction of required resources. This neural network prediction is also related to something called "seasonality." Some companies get more business during the holidays, and others get more business during the summer, such as travel agents and hotels. Look for products that support seasonality within their workforce management solution.

7) Agent proficiency and the ability to swap days with another agent. Several workforce management products have a team or agent "swap" schedule feature. How does this impact your service level? Not all agents are equal in experience or skills, so if one agent switches their schedule with another, the workforce management software should warn if this would adversely impact service levels. Similarly, the software should allow you to assign proficiencies to individual agents. For example, two trainees may equal one experienced agent. You should be able to drill down further and assign proficiencies by individual skill-sets. For example, if someone could be 100 percent proficient at speaking Spanish, but only 30 percent proficient at handing issues related to a particular product line.

8) Meaningful and easy-to-understand graphs/reports. Instantly see graphically on a chart what happens to your service level when you make a change to the scheduling, the service level, or some other criteria. Perhaps someone has called in sick or is taking a vacation. You should be able to instantly see the impact this will have on your call center and determine whether or not you need to modify the schedule to keep the service level up to par. Typically the best products display the hour on the x-axis, the number of agents on the y-axis, and color-coded bars representing workload met, workload under, and understaffing and overstaffing superimposed on top of each other for each hour. Often these charts can display real-time statistics, which is valuable in determining adherence to predicted call volume.

9) ASP-model workforce management products. There are several advantages to this. First of all, you can gain access to the information via a browser from anywhere in the world. Second, they are often very cost-effective. Also, not only will they help you in setting up your account, but because it's usually based on a monthly service fee, they'll often service you and help you get the most out of the software. One such company doing an ASP-model workforce management solution is ISC with their Irene Online product. Another company doing this is Journyx.

10) Cost analysis and integration with payroll and attendance systems. Several of these products integrate with payroll to save on tedious timesheets when submitting hours worked. Analysis of labor hours worked could also be used for budgetary reasons. In addition, when linked with wage information, you can produce reports calculating the cost of labor per employee, position, branch, etc. Finally, with integration with attendance records, a graph or report could be made to determine agent performance as well as agent adherence-monitoring purposes.

A TOUR OF WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT VENDORS
At the Fall 2000 Communications Solutions EXPO, I met with several vendors that sell workforce management solutions. I was particularly impressed with Global Management Technologies Corporation's product called GMT Planet. This software not only handles predicting scheduling based on call volume, but it also handles Web inquiries and e-mail, supports blending and resource leveling, and adds agent proficiency to skill-based scheduling, as well as schedule-costing/budgeting features. It also interfaces with payroll and attendance systems. But what I really enjoyed most about the product was it's reporting capabilities, particularly the color-coded graphical charts that displayed "workload met," "overstaffing," and "understaffing" in distinctive colors to quickly pinpoint trouble spots.

I also met with Neural Networks, which promoted its AI capabilities. The application uses an artificial neural network (ANN), a form of artificial intelligence that can "think," identify trends, and even predict them. Neuralnet Forecast Manager takes into account the history of a call center and current and future factors (such as holidays, time of day, time of year, and day of the week), and then predicts call volume, the number of agents needed to efficiently handle the calls, and with what skills those agents should be equipped.

And I can't forget mentioning Blue Pumpkin, a perennial winner of several of TMC's prestigious awards and considered to be one of the leaders within the workforce management space. I didn't have time to stop by their booth, but they're worth a look if you are evaluating workforce management products.

Hopefully, my suggestions for what to look for in a good workforce management solution were helpful. There are several other companies in workforce management that I haven't mentioned. If you want a more complete listing, try searching our comprehensive online Buyer's Guide. Our online search engine is very powerful, so feel free to use it to look up other product genres within the communications space as well.

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