What is Workforce Optimization (WFO)?
With all the moving pieces on a day to day basis, Workforce Optimization (WFO) is a call center strategy that increases customer satisfaction while decreasing operational costs. There are many reasons a company needs this, ranging from quality management to CRM integration.
What Are The Benefits of WFO in Call Centers?
Workforce optimization helps organizations in various ways depending on their goals. However, there are common key components that make up this type of a solution including quality management and call recording, workforce management, interaction analytics, and performance management.
Quality Management
Contact center supervisors, similar to live agents, need the right tools to evaluate different scenarios and team members to give the proper feedback. Multichannel evaluations, real-time agent desktop monitoring, and automated scoring selection cover these needs. Learn more
Interaction Recording
Another reason for workforce optimization is the ability to record more than just the call itself. Interaction details might include what channels of communication they had before and after the call, how long they were on the call, and if their issue was resolved. This accomplishes a better overall experience in the long term. Learn more
Workforce Management
Having the right balance between customer satisfaction and contact center efficiency is always going to be a challenge. This is where Workforce Management (WFM) helps achieve that balance, with the right number of agents that qualify with the right skills being available. This is possible through forecasting, scheduling, adherence, intraday, portal, mobile, and CRM. Learn more
Interaction Analytics
Being able to measure interactions with analytical reports that have relevant metrics is just as important as the recording itself. Interaction analytics provides data for both voice and digital channels, along with insight on where breakdowns happen, how to avoid them, and where to improve. Examples include speech and text analysis, automatic topic identification, root case analysis, query analysis, and automated quality management. Learn more
Performance Management
Overlapping with quality management, performance management works towards goal alignment, transparency, and collaboration within a call center and its teams. Role-based dashboards, real-time data, automated alerts, customizable KPIs and metrics, and wallboards are some of the main features. Learn more
CRM Integration
Having a great CRM is only part of the process. Seamless integration with a call center’s existing software is another major part of the process of leveraging your company’s existing investments. Larger CRM vendors such as Salesforce, Oracle, Microsoft, and Zendesk are usually a sure bet to offer pre-built integrations, while some providers even allow for customizations such as a rich framework for REST API, reference UI, and additional tools. Learn more
Now that you know why you need Workforce Optimization, learn more about The Benefits of Workforce Management.
Cloud-Based Agility
Moving to the cloud will allow for faster, easier deployments, seamless upgrades, flexible scalability, and reduced capital expenditures associated with on-premises systems.
Connected Journeys
The contact center should support customer journeys across web chat and social messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and others.
Omnichannel Unification
Shoppers will be coming in from many different channels, so it will streamline the customer experience to route interactions using the same logic.
Customer Context
Agents must begin the conversation right where the customer left off online. When the customer’s needs are transferred to an agent in real time, your brand is creating a seamless transition from web to contact center. Remove customer stress, unneeded customer repetition, wasted time, and deliver a world-class customer experience
CRM 
Integration
Customer relationship management (CRM) system integration can improve the shopper experience by using CRM data to find the last person spoken to, use shopper purchase history to find the best expert, etc. In addition, once the connection occurs, your staff can access past interaction history and CRM information to understand the customer’s journey and deliver a more personalized experience.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI can deliver next- best-action recommendations and assist in responses that will improve conversion rates, increase shopping cart value, and speed up responses.
Real-Time Management
Supervisors should monitor messaging interactions in real time and assist if needed, even if they are not in the same location.
AI & PCI Compliance
Intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) can automate payment processing across digital channels and reduce your compliance risk by collecting sensitive customer data without revealing it to a human agent. Make sure that the IVAs can easily integrate with your payment gateways.
