Customers should be the center of attention for all contact centers, but agents are the driving force behind the scenes who guarantee that these customers have a timely, empathetic, and efficient experience. 

On a daily basis, call center agents must handle various jobs. Because agents are the heart of the call center, their managers must do everything they can to ensure their professional success and well-being, as well as to create a healthy work environment. After all, satisfied agents bring in satisfied customers and, as a result, an award-winning customer experience.

The first step in keeping agents happy and productive is developing and implementing a complete call center Workforce Management (WFM) strategy.

What does Call Center Workforce Management mean?

First, let’s define what a call center workforce management is:

Whether you work for a large corporation, a startup, or a small firm, you probably already have a call center WFM plan in place, even if you don't call it that way.

In a few words, workforce management solutions are the tools used by call centers to guarantee that the right number of agents are scheduled at the correct times and that each agent's unique skill sets are put to good use at those times as well.

Importance of Call Center Workforce

Your call center will be more cost-effective, your customer service will be top-notch, and your agents will be more engaged and efficient while doing their daily activities if you use the ideal WFM plan. This is why:

• By optimizing staffing levels, you'll save money in the long run—knowing when your call center is quietest means you can safely assign fewer agents to work at such times
• Customers will rarely have to wait in the queue for long periods of time since enough agents will always be available to answer inbound calls immediately
• You and your agents will never be caught off guard by call spikes; on an hourly, daily, and weekly basis, you’ll have a complete insight of call volume patterns

How to start planning a WFM strategy?

The thought of building a call center WFM plan may be frightening at first, but with a solid foundation of knowledge, it becomes more straightforward.

To get started with your WFM plan, try these 3 steps:

1. Analyze previous data

Reviewing historical statistics is a simple technique to anticipate future call volumes. Look back over the last 12 months, week by week, to see if trends emerge. If there were any unusually high or low volume days, make sure to check them against events such as holidays, special offers, sales, or anything else that could have influenced the metrics.

2. Focus on forecasting and planning

Once you've analyzed previous data, forecast your upcoming weeks and schedule accordingly. For example, if you know Monday and Wednesday mornings are particularly busy, make sure you have adequate coverage for those hours. It's also a good idea to mix up your agents' levels of experience. During the busiest times, it's best to staff up on your fastest agents and those with the most expertise; newer agents will be able to spend more time on their calls on days when call volumes are expected to be low but make sure to schedule a few experienced agents to train and support new hires and answer pressing newbie concerns.

3. Repeat the process once a week

Constant monitoring of call volumes, agent performance, and other metrics is required to ensure continual WFM efficiency. Set a time at the start of your current week to review data from the prior week. If you see any irregularities early on, you may catch them and staff accordingly for the weeks ahead while you figure out why and how.

What’s to come for Call Center WFM this year?

A whole transition to work-from-home model

Many call centers have learned that working remotely saves money and gives employees a better work-life balance. As a result, the call center business is seeing a decrease in the "return to office" mentality. Many companies are bypassing their expensive office leases in exchange for all-remote operations, while others are taking a hybrid strategy.

Increase of automation

With more staff working remotely, the number of call centers investing in automated scheduling technologies is likely to increase. Since many remote employees will be working in different time zones, call center managers will find it more challenging to schedule agents, making automation a more appealing option.

More schedule flexibility

Many industries worldwide are currently experiencing serious labor shortages, leaving organizations around the world with significant workforce gaps to fill. As the demand for new employees grows, call center managers will need to be more flexible and mindful about the type of personnel they hire, whether that means looking for part-time or temp workers.

At Call Center Services International (CCSI), our expertise is in workforce recruitment, retention, and development. We feature a professional, bilingual (English/Spanish), bicultural and performance-driven workforce from traditional brick-and-mortar centers and work-from-home models. Our core business is to help you establish a high-performance and cost-effective nearshore center in Mexico. CCSI’s solution will allow you to reduce labor and operational costs while accomplishing your corporate performance objectives.