ByJosh King
Posted on
Let’s face it, the call center of yesteryear is not wholly relevant when looking at customer service operations today. Even the terms “call center” and “contact center” are called into question, given the images they evoke of rows of agents in cubicles lined up to fill a room. For convenience, I’ll use the term “contact…
ByDonna Lightfoot
Posted on
During my career in workforce management, call avoidance was always an issue — regardless of the location of the business, the nature of the business, or the location of the agent. Call avoidance, now known as interaction avoidance, denotes the steps an agent takes to avoid handling a customer interaction. It can take time and…
ByDonna Lightfoot
Posted on
When it comes to call avoidance (or, more accurately these days, interaction avoidance), you usually know it when you see it. Unless you don’t. It’s easier than you think to misjudge an agent in an interaction, so I’ve assembled examples of interaction avoidance along with actions you should take when it occurs. We’ll also look…
ByPlayvox Team
Posted on
“Time is money” is a phrase attributed to Benjamin Franklin, first appearing in The American Instructor, a book published in 1748. For contact center managers, this phrase rings in their heads each time they create a forecast, build a schedule, or track schedule adherence. Working efficiently becomes even more important when costs are rising, agents…
ByPlayvox Team
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Here’s an alarming statistic: More than half (56%) of contact center agents say they’d think about leaving their jobs if they couldn’t work remotely. Our 2022 research study of contact center agents and managers revealed a big conflict between these groups: Despite most agents’ appetite for remote work, almost half of contact centers plan to…
ByDonna Lightfoot
Posted on
As workforce management professionals, we are faced with the daunting task of figuring out the ideal forecast, matching that forecast with a schedule and then making sure that our “master plan” works in the real world – meaning all the people that we are counting on for their shifts work their shifts as planned. Unfortunately,…
ByDonna Lightfoot
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During my time as a workforce management (WFM) professional, I have implemented WFM systems into several departments within multiple companies. These implementations were either with a department or company that did not have a previous WFM system or they had one but were not using it to its potential. In some instances, the workforce management…
ByDonna Lightfoot
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Try a quick web search, and you’ll find pages of content answering the question, “What is WFM?” But while many of the articles (and graphics and videos) provide some answers, they’re usually packed with industry jargon unfamiliar to most people. So, rather than help, all that information often leads to further confusion and misconceptions about…
ByRohit Rakkar
Posted on
There’s a lot riding on your contact center schedule. Does it have enough coverage for each channel? Does it meet your agents’ needs? Does it have the right tasks at the right times? Will customers get service in the time they expect? Even when you get it all set, making sure agents stick to your…
ByPlayvox Team
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During the global pandemic, customers massively turned to digital communications, and, according to consumer studies, this change is here to stay. While presenting a tremendous opportunity for business growth, this trend also creates challenges for contact centers. Customers now expect to do business with an omnichannel contact center that delivers consistent and seamless customer experiences…