When your goal is workforce optimization, there are two prongs you have to focus on—investing in technology, and investing in your employees. One approach by itself simply isn’t enough. Some managers think that by getting the best software and technology, they’ll be able to optimize their workforce, but then they ignore the human component of the job. Conversely, some think that through strong management and leadership, they’ll be able to have their contact center running as smoothly as possible. But they don’t realize that they have to give their employees the right technology to excel in their job.

Employee Investment

• Attracting and Retaining Good Agents—Contact centers have always been known for high turnover. It’s what many managers worry about. When employees burn out or become disengaged, their performance suffers and productivity drops off. There are two things you should focus on to keep turnover low. Those are improving your hiring methods and agent training.
• When you have an intelligent hiring methodology and a robust training system in place, you’ll cut down on the number of agents you hire who aren’t a good fit. You’ll always have occasional miscues in hiring, and sometimes agents who were doing good work burn out, but when you put these systems in place, you should see your turnover decrease.
• Motivation—Another way to invest in your employees and optimize your workforce is to simply give your employees more motivation to do a good job. Bonuses and time off should be on the table for top performing employees. Agents will burn out and disengage much quicker if they don’t have anything to compete for.

Technology Investment

• Empowerment—Even though these two headings are separate, investing in technology is part of investing in your employees. When you give them the technology they need to perform well, you’re empowering your employees and helping them work smarter.
• Invest in a single workforce optimization solution that can streamline all your different processes. A single unified solution is more efficient, and can monitor your agents’ performance, help avoid scheduling conflicts, and maintain a unified office. Be sure you retrain your agents so that they can work easily with your new software and get all of the possible benefits.
• Customer Information—When you invest in workforce optimization software, part of what you should be getting is a way to capture and analyze all of your customer’s calls. By capturing and mining this data, you can find trends and patterns in the calls that you otherwise would have missed. You can then use this knowledge to help your agents who may be having trouble with certain calls or customer needs. Coaching or retraining agents will cost you a lot less in the long run than constantly hiring new agents.

If you think your contact center could benefit from workforce optimization technology, then contact KOVA today. We have a wide selection of software that can fit your every need!