Call monitoring and workforce management processes improved through automation

Having just gone to the annual Northeast Contact Center Forum, which is a great conference jam-packed with valuable contact center-focused content for its' audience.

I did get a chance to talk to a percentage of attendees, and I observed one trend which I found eye-opening:

A handful of contact centers today are still running their key call monitoring and workforce management processes with Microsoft Excel! 

Organizations like the NECCF exist to help contact center professionals learn what is available to help them in their day-to-day contact center lives, and the industry consultants and analysts will likely be less surprised than I was about the amount of companies still using Excel.

In fact, using Excel must be better than using nothing. I am sure many managers have done many amazing things with Excel macros and pivot tables.

Still, the ROI and benefits of automating those processes seem extremely compelling:

- Time Savings: Not only will supervisors be freed up to do additioal tasks, they can also evaluate more recorded interactions, including screen recordings, web chats, email support and more. They will also be able to evaluate the most important interactions based on the data analytics streaming through their dashboards.

- Cost Savings: Under and Over staffing is a challenge which can be solved quickly with the right workforce management solution.

- Efficiency gains: Average Handle Time and First Call Resolution are two key metrics which can be improved with the help of a call monitoring system.

- Customer Service Improvement: Using an advanced call monitoring solution will allow your staff to ensure training focuses on the key needs for improvement.

- Improve Scheduling: With the help of an automated workforce management solution, schedulers can create forecasts & schedules based on multi-skilled agents with the click of a button. Another click will yield what-if scenarios.

- and the list goes on and on...

I suppose there still are reasons (cost may be one, but even the cost of a robust, scalable enterprise workforce optimization solution has been made more affordable in recent years) companies resist bringing in a modern, automated workforce optimization solution. I just can't think of any.

Related articles

• Six Benefits to Calculate WFM Solution ROI
• Promero Offers Industry's First Social Media Filtering ACD Call Center Solution
• 4 Predictions for the Contact Center of the Near Future
• How Agent Performance Influences the Customer Experience

What's the most frequent use for call recording: quality assurance or liability / verification?

We asked this question to a diverse group of call center professionals. Among the responses:

"My company does not use call recording software; however, we often find the need to partner with entities that do supply such capabilities for our customer base. We sell solutions that provide E911 support for Enterprise customers. Being that a 911 call more then likely is some sort of emergency, most customers have strict requirements for call recording. In these cases, I would assume the need will be much more for liability protection, though I could also see need to review 911 calls from a training perspective." - e911 solution provider

"Most catalog companies I’ve spoken to are heavily into sales and customer service, so training seems to be the most important issue." - Call Recording Sales Executive

"Some are recording sales confirmations for high ticket items but for the most part they capture unique identifiers as a means of certifying the purchase." - Call Center Consultant

"I’ve found that most catalog centers I’ve reached out to have expressed a need for employee development vs. legal/liability recording," - Regional Sales Manager, Call Center Recording Solutions

"Depends on the industry, of course. For catalog companies, it's definitely QA" - Call Center Software Programmer

"It would seem to me that certain e-commerce industries, such as catalog companies, would definitely start out call recording to help meet their quality initiatives, but I could see more and more of them starting to record all calls for liability reasons and dispute resolution. They definitely need to encrypt calls if they are accepting credit card orders over the phone." - Marketing Executive

Daylight Savings Time notice for Virtual Observer users

As most users are aware, the United States Energy Policy Act of 2005 changed the rules setting when DST starts and ends. Starting in March 2007, this law extends Daylight Saving Time (DST) by four weeks (DST will begin on the second Sunday in March and end on the first Sunday in November).

How will the change in DST affect Virtual Observer?

Because CSI-developed software works off of the Windows Operating system clock and assuming that all applicable updates are made to your Microsoft operating systems, the change in DST observance will have no effect on the processing of any CSI software. This includes all supported releases of Virtual Observer