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Workforce Optimization Solutions Adapt to Changing Market Needs

The workforce optimization (WFO) market is at a turning point, and much of the groundwork to support the next-generation contact center is being readied. The need to support true omni-channel customer touch points, and to gather and aggregate “big data” to understand, evaluate and improve the customer journey and reduce customer effort are mega-trends that are driving investments in service organizations. Technology trends such as mobility, globalization, virtualization and the availability of cloud-based solutions are driving vendor investments to meet the requirements of the Millennial workforce and consumers.
WFO Solutions Evolve to Address Changing Needs
The WFO vendors are adept at delivering technology and innovation to address specific contact center and enterprise needs and challenges, while at the same time revamping their solutions to make the most of the opportunities presented by market trends. This is one of the reasons why contact center WFO solutions never get old, even though the solutions are mature.
The WFO competitive landscape is transitioning, and the mid-tier contenders are seizing market opportunities. These vendors appreciate the need to change the way they do business; they do not want to compete on price, but instead are finding ways to disrupt the traditional WFO market by taking new approaches. Some vendors have come up with methodologies to dramatically speed up implementations, while others are concentrating on being great partners who are willing to “go the extra mile” to keep their customers happy. The business approaches are varied: some are aggressive and others are more subtle. Satisfaction is high among customers of many of the up-and-coming WFO vendors, many of whom are highly responsive to customer requests.
The Cloud is Playing a Growing Role in the World of WFO
Cloud-based solutions are coming on strong, and the WFO vendors are responding to the changing needs of their customers. The cloud is helping to make WFO functionality available to contact centers of all sizes, even those with smaller budgets that might preclude a large up-front investment. WFO vendors with a true multi-tenant architecture and a cloud-based provisioning environment have an advantage when it comes to selling in the cloud, whether on a direct basis or through partners. Cloud-based contact center infrastructure vendors who sell ACDs and dialers are actively building partnerships, and/or acquiring WFO solution providers to round out their product sets and respond to the needs of their end-user clients.
Research and Development are Increasing the Value of WFO
On the product side, user interfaces (UIs) are getting a much-needed and well-deserved overhaul. As WFO solutions deliver more integrated and aggregated data, analytics-driven processes and more real-time information, end users need unified and streamlined interfaces with a common paradigm to render information in intuitive presentations. This includes mobile-enabled apps for administrators, supervisors and agents. Agent engagement is another important concept that is also contributing to UI redesign, as more organizations realize the great benefits that result from giving agents access to real-time performance information and gamification features that motivate and empower them to self-manage performance.
WFO Solutions Deliver Customer Journey Analytics
The need to capture and evaluate the full omni-channel customer journey is a ground-breaking trend that is in its infancy, even though the concepts have been discussed for years. “Big data” and increased processing speed are making it possible for companies to capture and analyze massive amounts of customer information quickly enough to make the findings useful and actionable. DMG expects to see substantial investments in the area of customer journey analytics, as it gives companies deep insights into how well they are doing business with customers on a multi-channel basis.
Final Thoughts
The market is on the verge of ushering in a new era of servicing that will require a new generation of WFO solutions powered by predictive and prescriptive analytics. These solutions will also automate decision-making, enable organizations to recognize and treat the “whole customer,” and respond in real time with personalized, concierge-like customer care. Although this “contact center of the future” is still years away, the groundwork is being laid, and WFO solutions will play a major role in helping companies achieve their goals.

DMG IN THE NEWS

2/27/2015
Verizon Doubles Down on Customer Service with ‘Smart Simple Connected’ Initiative
(SmartCustomerService.com)

1/10/2015
Analytics Revolutionizes the QA Process
(Speech Technology)

Ask the Experts

Question:
Can you give us some suggestions on how to enhance the agent interviewing process in our contact center so that it encompasses the multi-channel nature of the job?
Answer:

Hiring remains a critical and challenging task for contact centers. Everything works better with the right people. While it’s fine to intensively train new employees, it’s a lot easier if they come in with the right attitude and aptitude. Contact center managers should work with human resources to create detailed job descriptions (JDs) that specify daily responsibilities, educational background and prior experience. They should also develop a two-step interview process. The first phase is to interview people, using the channels in which they are going to be working. If you’re hiring people who are going to be asked to handle phone, email, chat and SMS, create a process that tests their skills interacting in each of these channels. If they pass the initial screening, invite them in for an interview. If they are virtual agents, conduct the “in-person” portion using Skype, WebEx or another video-type product. It is important for the candidate to be personable, professional and clearly interested in the job.

For the recruitment effort to be successful, contact center managers and HR should create an interview process that incorporates an initial test, a “channel” interview and an “in-person” follow-up. If designed properly, one person can handle all aspects of the interview, instead of involving many managers, which is more time-consuming and complicated. Hiring criteria vary depending on the nature of the job, but should address the following:

  1. Capability – seeing if the person has the aptitude to succeed in a particular operating environment
  2. Communication skills – ensuring that candidates can communicate clearly and concisely in each channel (speaking and/or writing)
  3. Typing/keyboard – ensuring that they can get the job done in a timely and accurate manner
  4. Math – making sure that people can look at numbers and make sense of them; agents can use calculators, but they should know the basics
  5. Multi-tasking abilities – seeing how easily the person moves from one activity to another… Read More

DMG Consulting LLC is a leading independent research, advisory and consulting firm specializing in unified communications, contact centers, back-office and real-time analytics. Learn more at www.dmgconsult.com.