Question:

Is contact center performance management something more than advanced reporting?

Answer:

Leading workforce optimization (WFO) and best-of-breed providers have offered contact center performance management (CCPM) applications for decades, yet they continue to be one of the most misunderstood and under-appreciated applications in the contact center market. While CCPM solutions should be able to generate very attractive advanced reports, their intrinsic value is their ability to assist contact center managers and executives by giving them the information they need to manage their operation at the agent, team, site, and organization levels. CCPM solutions can deliver great value in these complex operating environments by providing strategic insights regarding most aspects of a contact center’s performance and delivering advanced business intelligence (BI) support. There are two primary types of CCPM: historical and real-time. Both categories have a distinct purpose and provide actionable output based on the time frame of the information that is accessed and analyzed. 

Historical performance management tracks key performance indicators (KPIs) over time to surface trends, agent or contact center performance opportunities, system issues, problematic procedures, inefficient processes, and other operational performance impediments. Historical performance management pulls data from various enterprise data sources, and typically delivers outputs via scorecards (agent, team, site, etc.) and reports that are updated on a next-day basis. Historical CCPM is retrospective or reactive in nature, and is used by contact center managers and enterprise executives to identify and evaluate performance and trends in contact center operations, processes and training. Historical performance management is used in making strategic long-term decisions and changes. 

Real-time performance management monitors agent, team and contact center activity and performance from multiple disparate data sources, as it is happening. Real-time performance management is more tactical than historical performance management, enabling contact center agents, supervisors and managers to make quick adjustments, alter outcomes and improve results.