Archive

Scheduling 2.0: A Transparent Approach to Workforce Management

I've encountered numerous WFM scheduling software features over the years. Most of these systems can handle basic requirements, such as creating schedules based on business constraints and some employee inputs. At the end of the day though the scheduling feature typically optimizes schedules based on the business'

A Simple Approach to Calculating Turnaround Time (Part 2)

Last week, I wrote about calculating the potential queue size of an asynchronous channel using Little’s Law. One crucial variable in determining queue size is the average turnaround time for a ticket. In my opinion, this is the most challenging variable to calculate because it depends on accurately assessing

Estimating Contact Center Queue Sizes Using Back-of-the-Napkin Math

Want to know a quick way to gauge a potential queue in an asynchronous contact center? This approach is similar to how a real estate investor calculates the net operating income of commercial real estate and divides it by the cap rate to determine its valuation. Or in personal finance,

Optimize Like the Celtics: Turning Around Capacity Challenges in Contact Centers

Ever been in a situation where you are brought in as a capacity planner with the expectation of optimizing a contact center? In layman's terms, this means decreasing operating expenses while maintaining or improving client turnaround time. There are usually two situations. The contact center is operating with

The Core Truths to Maximize Value of Data

As the amount of data available in a contact center grows over time, there are almost infinite ways to analyze and report on trends. As a data enthusiast, I enjoy diving deep to uncover insights and answer pressing questions about business performance. Here are some core truths I constantly remind

The Must-Have Dashboard for Managing Ticketing CX Queues

If you operate in an asynchronous environment such as a ticketing channel, one crucial dashboard you need is a view that captures your queue size at specific time intervals. In a phone channel, this isn’t as critical because calls tend to abandon after a short threshold, leading to an

Workforce Management: An Essential Yet Often Overlooked Aspect of Customer Experience Departments

Workforce Management (WFM) is a department rarely established when a company initially launches its customer experience department. From a timeline perspective, WFM is a shared service department that typically gets implemented when the customer experience department reaches a size and complexity where operational leaders find it challenging to forecast demand,

The Future of Real-Time Adherence in Workforce Management

One area I haven't developed much in my current Workforce Management (WFM) practice is the real-time adherence (RTA) teams, systems, and processes. It's not because I don't see the value in it, but rather I believe this portion of workforce management will change significantly

Building a Capacity Confidence Matrix for Better Business Planning

I've previously written about the importance of planning for a range of outcomes, suggesting that one should create multiple scenarios to understand how capacity would fare if certain inputs, such as demand, shrinkage, attrition, and other factors, change. This approach allows capacity planners to scenario-plan and inform the

Leaning In: Enhancing WFM through Collaboration

We've all been there: working with operational leaders who have different views on how workforce management should be handled, diverging from your own philosophy on WFM operations. In such situations, as a WFM leader, you can either lean out or lean in. Early in my career, I often

Effective Schedule Optimization: Bridging the Gap Between Business and WFM

There is often a misunderstanding when it comes to Workforce Management (WFM) teams' responsibilities for schedule optimization. The primary responsibility of a WFM team is to provide an ideal shift structure that closely follows the business's demand curve. However, leaders sometimes make vague comments like "I

Unbundling Airline Services: A Look at WestJet's New Booking Fees

I recently watched an interesting documentary by CBC News about how Canadian airlines are continuing to unbundle basic airline packages, allowing customers to choose à la carte which benefits they want to include in their flights. Traditional packages often include services such as checked bags, priority seating, and hot meal

Uncertainty of Average Handle Time in Operational Forecasting

Last week, I discussed how to forecast one component of the demand equation—transaction volume. Today, I will write about the other component: Average Handle Time (AHT). Like my approach to forecasting transaction volume, my understanding of AHT has evolved a lot over time. Average Handle Time (AHT) often presents

Navigating the Nuances in Demand Forecasting in Workforce Management

When people ask me how to forecast demand, what used to be a straightforward question has evolved into a more nuanced inquiry. Initially, I would simply multiply the total number of transactions by the average handle time of each transaction to determine the necessary labor time for a capacity plan.

Optimizing Contact Center Schedules: Why Capacity Planning Comes First

Before optimizing schedules in smaller contact centers, it's crucial to address several key questions concerning capacity challenges, which often arise from misalignments between associate supply and workload curves. Operational leaders frequently suspect incorrect scheduling as the root cause of these challenges. However, the fundamental question remains: How many

Rethinking Callback Features in Capacity-Challenged Contact Centers

I believe it's time for most contact centers facing capacity challenges to eliminate callback features. Here are my reasons for why callback strategies in such contact centers are generally flawed. When a client places a phone call, it indicates their availability at that moment. However, offering a callback

Enhancing WFM Tools: Bridging the Gap in Forecasting and Capacity Planning

Over the years, I've come to appreciate the constant innovation and new features that workforce management (WFM) vendors have introduced. However, one area that hasn't quite hit the mark for frequent usage by WFM teams is the forecasting and capacity planning tools. Here’s why these

Workload Calculation with AHT: A Call Center's Guide

In every call center organization, regardless of whether it's a predominantly synchronous channel like phone calls or an asynchronous channel like ticketing, one common Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is Average Handle Time (AHT). This is a critical metric to measure accurately because it influences workload calculations. An incorrect

Navigating Customer Service: The Dynamics of Synchronous and Asynchronous Channels

Over the past few years, I've supported a customer experience department within a ticketing environment, prompting me to reflect on the distinct differences between synchronous (e.g., phone/chat) and asynchronous (e.g., tickets) contact centers. Both types of centers have unique challenges and considerations when it comes

Deepening WFM Expertise in the Age of Generative AI

Last week, I discussed how generative AI in Workforce Management (WFM) can help create additional time for exploring adjacent functions, promoting an integrative thinking approach that surpasses current AI capabilities. This week, I aim to explore increasing one's depth of knowledge within their specific WFM function. Depth WFM

How Generative AI Can Transform Your Role in Workforce Management Part 1

I have two perspectives regarding how Workforce Management (WFM) professionals can leverage the impact of generative AI in the industry: breadth and depth. This week, I'll discuss breadth, and next week, I'll explore depth. Breadth In WFM, core pillars such as real-time adherence, scheduling, forecasting, and

How Klarna Uses AI to Streamline Operations and Empower Its Workforce

About a month ago, Klarna released a press statement announcing that its AI technology can now perform the duties of 700 workers. This statement was further elaborated in a CBS interview with its CEO, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, who provided deeper insights beyond the initial announcement about job reductions. https://www.cbsnews.

Adapting WFM for the Future: The Role of Team Size

In what may seem like a unconventional opinion, I argue that Workforce Management (WFM) departments should be cautious about expanding their team sizes in the future. Reflecting on my early years in the industry, decision-makers often relied on a simple ratio method to determine the number of RTA/Schedulers/Forecasters

When to Make the Leap: Evaluating the Move to a New WFM System

Last week, I discussed the criteria I use to assess a new workforce management (WFM) system when a contact center is purchasing its first WFM system. This week, I'll discuss the criteria I consider important when transitioning from one WFM system to another. With that being said, staying

Evaluating Your First WFM System: A Guide for Contact Centers

As contact centers evolve, the consideration of acquiring a Workforce Management (WFM) system becomes crucial. Typically, there are two scenarios: either the contact center is adopting a WFM system for the first time, moving from having zero to having one, or it already has a WFM system but is seeking

Balancing Technology and Business Acumen in Transaction Volume Forecasting

I have been experimenting with various forecasting and inference Python libraries the past few weeks, and I have reinforced some of my thoughts regarding forecasting transaction volumes using these libraries. No single time series forecasting tool can perfectly predict transaction volumes for your contact center. Out-of-the-box libraries are straightforward to

Insights from the Society for Workforce Planning Professionals Conference

Last week, I had the opportunity of speaking at an annual conference in Nashville known as the Society for Workforce Planning Professionals. During this event, several key points emerged that resonated with the audience and I want to share them with you! One insight is the importance of keeping the

SWPP Conference

Hey all, this is a quick one for this week since I will be on the road for a conference. Let me know if you are interested in seeing the presentation and I will share it exclusively with the subscribers! Thanks again for taking the time to read my weekly

The Future of Customer Service: Navigating the AI Revolution in Contact Centers

One of my colleagues recently shared with me an article about Air Canada's introduction of a self-service chatbot for customer assistance. Unfortunately, the chatbot provided inaccurate information, leading to financial losses for a customer. Intriguingly, Air Canada attempted to argue that the chatbot, as a separate legal entity,

The Path to Workforce Excellence: Leveraging WFM for Optimal Efficiency

Companies that hire workforce management (WFM) departments follow a similar trajectory from an effort to optimization point of view. At the start of the journey, there are quick wins that allow the WFM department to drive large optimization payouts. Here are a few examples: 1. Measuring baseline productivity. 2. Building

Maximizing Efficiency: Preparing for the Super Bowl Surge in Customer Contacts

The NFL season represents the prime time for revenue and customer engagement for most North American sportsbook gaming companies. The excitement builds up during the NFL playoffs, reaching its peak with the Super Bowl, which generates three to four times the customer contacts of any regular busy NFL day. To

Leveraging AI to Enhance Zendesk Analytics in Workforce Management

Last week, I delved into enhancing the analytical and data engineering capabilities of workforce management teams. Today, I'd like to share a practical example of how we addressed a specific challenge. At DraftKings, we rely heavily on Zendesk as our customer ticketing platform. It enables our frontline associates

From Data Overload to Insight: Transforming Workforce Management

Have you ever encountered a situation where standard reporting tools in contact center platforms or Workforce Management (WFM) software fall short of your specific needs? This often leads analysts to manually extract and process data, using tools like Google Sheets or Excel to create reports that align with management'

Navigating New Norms: Strategic Workforce Planning for Enhanced Operational Efficiency in 2024

Last year, companies shifted their focus towards creating operational efficiencies due to the end of the Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) era. Central banks raised policy rates to a 20-year high to combat inflation. This had a significant downstream impact: companies that were not profitable had to extend their burn

The Untapped Potential of WFM Platforms in Streamlining Enterprise Operations

I have experience with various Workforce Management (WFM) platforms, and I've noticed that they all share similar core functions. Essentially, these platforms create a system to track the productivity of front-line staff in contact centers, measuring it against the volume of transactions handled. The key features of these

New Year, New Challenges: Effective FTE Planning in Capacity Management

Back from the holiday hiatus, I hope you all had a delightful holiday! Oneof the first tasks I tackle upon returning from the holidays, which coincides with the start of most companies' fiscal years, is reviewing the actual Full-Time Equivalents (FTEs) versus the budgeted FTEs. This is a critical

Balancing the Books: Understanding Compensation Trends at Year's End

At the close of the calendar year, or for some, the end of the fiscal year, you, as a planner, are tallying the actual compensation expenses for the first 11 months and adding December's projected expenses to create an annual year-end forecast. You are likely encountering one of

Navigating the Financial Maze: The Role of Capacity Planning in Operating Expenses

A proficient planner should not only focus on enhancing their capacity planning capabilities but also grasp how capacity plans impact a business's financial statements. This role holds significant influence over the operating expense line in the income statement and the operating cash flow line in the cash flow

Harnessing ChatGPT for Efficient Load Balancing in Zendesk

This year, I've been experimenting extensively with ChatGPT and have found it incredibly useful for summarizing API documentation and generating boilerplate code for data retrieval and posting. ChatGPT has streamlined these processes for me, turning tasks that would typically take days into a few hours' work. It

Operational Excellence in Contact Centers: Balancing Hiring, Training, and Costs

As a contact center matures its WFM (Workforce Management) capabilities and optimizes its operations by completing all the low-effort, high-reward tasks, it will inevitably look to create additional efficiencies. One area is the ability to create flexibility in its hiring and knowledge management capacity. All contact centers face constraints when

Optimizing Customer Experience: Understanding Frequent Flyer Analysis

Frequent Flyers are customers who engage with the contact center more often than others. It's crucial to understand that being a frequent flier doesn't necessarily indicate an ignorant or malicious client. Instead, it could highlight a bottleneck or breakdown in the customer journey process that requires

Navigating Service Level Targets

Throughout my career in Workforce Management (WFM), I've traversed various contact centers catering to clients across diverse communication channels—phone, chat, tickets, and email. Across this landscape, there's one omnipresent metric: Service Level. Service Level is the percentage of transactions answered within a stipulated time frame,

How Clear Objectives Transform Work Prioritization

Early in my career, completing a simple to-do list sufficed as a measure of success. Things were more straightforward back then. However, as I progressed into senior roles, the scenario changed significantly. I came to realize a few crucial points: A) There's no longer a single to-do list

Hope vs. Action: A Guide to Productive Problem-Solving

Have you ever heard someone say, "I hope this will work out" in a professional setting? Perhaps you've even uttered similar hopeful statements yourself: * "I hope the talent acquisition team can hire enough associates to ensure capacity surges to meet peak demand." * "I

Organising Productivity: Insights for Capacity Planning

Capacity planning is crucial for any organization's smooth operation. When integrating a new supply of associates into your plan, seasoned capacity planners focus on productivity. The central question is whether these new associates will be as productive as the existing core team on day one. If not, it&

Effective Leadership: Balancing Experience and Analysis

I've had the opportunity to collaborate with numerous operational leaders in the contact center industry, and among those who consistently achieve success, there is a shared characteristic: they strike a careful balance between drawing upon their experience and relying on analytical research. Here are the top five key

Operational Efficiency in Retail: A Case for Collaborative Contact Center Technology

One area of labor planning that interests me is the physical retail customer channel. In my opinion, some of these physical retail channels can improve operational efficiency by utilizing contact center technology and resources. Let me explain with an example of how this could work. Financial institutions with branches often

From Answer-Providing to Question-Asking: A Leadership Skillset

Early in my career, I believed that my job was to resolve every issue my analysts faced. The typical scenario would unfold like this: Analyst: "Thomas, I don't know how to solve this scheduling problem." Me: "Sure, no problem. You should follow these steps."

Ticketing Environments and Contact Center Occupancy Challenges

In a synchronized setting like phone and chat support, occupancy reflects the capacity of the contact center. You can easily determine occupancy by assessing the hours of demand and supply in this context. Calculating supply hours in a ticketing system is a bit more complex but still intriguing. In the

Hard Work and Growth: Keys to Thriving in Workforce Management

It might seem counterintuitive, but some of the most significant advancements in my career in Workforce Management (WFM) have been preceded by tackling challenging tasks. In fact, this principle applies to many aspects of life; achieving better health, for instance, often demands sacrifices like dieting and exercise. These commitments can

Collaborative Solutions: Enhancing Scheduling Precision with BPOs

The organization I currently work for has some interesting challenges that the WFM (Workforce Management) team needs to take into account. One of these challenges is the significant fluctuations in ticket volume, which are driven by the seasonal nature of our business. Instead of a gradual increase in ticket numbers

Navigating the Future: Generative AI's Impact on Contact Centers

I've been contemplating the evolution of contact centers through the adoption of generative AI technology. I believe that integrating generative AI will decrease the handling of simple transactions by associates, subsequently reducing the need for the current level of staff. However, this transition won't occur immediately.

Empowering Workforce Management: The Essential Technical Skills for Success

Ten years ago, a WFM team could manage by extracting canned reports in CSV format, transforming them in Excel, pivoting the data, and generating reports. It was a manual process, but the data requirements for running the business were not as intense, allowing the business to cope. Fast forward, the

Bridging the Knowledge Gap: Effective Methods for Teaching Call Center Concept

The call center industry's knack for turning knowledge into an enigma makes comprehension challenging. As WFM professionals, grasping concepts is insufficient; teaching them is essential. Without this ability, our WFM goals falter. At its core, WFM guides and advises businesses, necessitating buy-in from operators and leaders for success.

Strategic Choices in Customer Service: Specialization vs. Generalization

As customer service leaders, we often find ourselves at a crossroads when new products launch, mergers occur, acquisitions are made, or new processes are implemented within our organizations. The burning question emerges: Should we specialize our customer service teams to handle these changes, or should we continue with a more

What are effective Workforce Planning Metrics?

As communication channels between companies and clients expand, the amount of data generated increases exponentially rather than linearly. This can lead to "metrics creep," where businesses continuously add metrics to focus on. Eventually, it becomes challenging to track them all and difficult to improve one metric without compromising

The Three Pillars of Excellence: Skills That Define Top Workforce Management Professionals

I've had the privilege of collaborating with numerous exceptional workforce management professionals throughout my career. Looking back, I've noticed three key skills that were consistently present in those I deeply respect. 1. Intellectual Curiosity: This quality signifies an inherent curiosity about how things work. Different companies

How to effectively leverage Business Processing Outsourcers (BPOs):

Recently, my team and I have been collaborating with BPOs, and I wanted to share some valuable insights for customer service organizations considering offshoring certain processes. Maintain open lines of communication: BPOs may not have access to the same knowledge management systems, support, and updates as your internal team. Keeping

Boosting Productivity in Workforce Management: Harnessing ChatGPT's Power

Large language model-based chatbots, such as ChatGPT, have undeniably revolutionized the way many of us approach analytical work. Workforce Management (WFM) is not exempt from the influence of these generative AI systems, and I'm here to embrace this change to enhance my productivity in my WFM role. With

Crafting a Path to WFM Expertise: Navigating from Day 0 to Mastery

If I were granted the opportunity to return to day 0, the very inception of my journey in the realm of Workforce Management (WFM) careers, I would meticulously follow these a series of steps to pave the path towards attaining true expertise. 1. Grasp First Principles: Begin by building a

Data Management Dilemma: Choosing Between In-House and Outsourced WFM Solutions

Throughout my WFM career, I've encountered scenarios where WFM data was handled by either the internal WFM team or external teams like a centralized analytics group. Each option presents distinct advantages and disadvantages: Internal WFM team managing the data: Advantages: * Speed and Flexibility: As contact center operations rapidly

Redefining Outsourcing Success: Beyond Service Level Targets

One of the main distinctions between outsourced vendors and an internal team is the lack of control that BPOs have over their transactional volume. The internal team, based on its business processes, determines what types and number of transactions to send to the vendors. Therefore, even if the BPOs achieve

Creating Optionality: A Framework for Achieving Goals

Ever been in a situation where executives challenge you to keep operating expenses at the same level the following year, even though customer transaction volume will increase? Or been given the task to improve client turnaround time without increasing headcount? I have seen too many situations where the leader picks

Translating Capacity Plans to Financial Projections: Top 10 Considerations for Success

Great job! You built a long-term capacity plan model that shows the FTE requirements for the foreseeable future. Next, your boss and finance department want a financial projection. It's not as simple as multiplying the FTEs by the hourly rate to come up with financial projections. I am

Winning Over Executives: Articulating the Value of WFM Teams

Are you an operational leader in a growing organisation that recognizes the value of a WFM (Workforce Management) team and wants to communicate this value to leadership? Here are some key points that your leadership team may consider when investing in a WFM team: 1. What are the major challenges

Choosing Between Centralised and Segmented WFM Models

In my career, I have encountered two primary end-state WFM (Workforce Management) models: Centralised and Segmented. The choice of which model to implement depends on the contact center's maturity/complexity and the level of WFM maturity. Centralised Model: In this model, WFM teams are split based on functional

New initiative launching? Who, what, where, when, how framework.

If you've been a WFM planner long enough, you will eventually be asked to build into your long-term forecasting model initiatives that will drive efficiencies in the contact center. While most project owners have good intentions and provide some information, it's your responsibility to gather all

Maximizing Results: The 'Effort vs Outcome' Framework

As a manager, I utilise a 2x2 grid to prioritise tasks based on Effort (resources/time/capital) and Outcome (benefit to the company). Outcome/Effort Grid Low Effort High Effort Low Outcome * Updating task codes to reflect productive time vs non productive time * Annual logistic review of how tickets are

Achieving Optimal Contact Center Scheduling: The Power of Flexibility and Collaboration

In the realm of contact centers, have you come across the concepts of on-demand scheduling and agent availability-based scheduling? Traditionally, contact centers undergo periodic shift rearrangements to adapt to varying seasonal demands. This ensures better alignment of associate schedules with the influx of customer interactions. However, this process is quite

What do Poker and Workforce Management Forecasting have in common?

As a poker enthusiast, I find intriguing parallels between the game and my workforce management professional role. In Poker, understanding opponents' hands involves analyzing their betting patterns, playing style, and the cards we hold. The key insight here is that we deduce opponents' possible hands as a range,

Unlocking Operational Efficiency: Harnessing the Power of Seasonality Optimization

A seasoned WFM expert can bring value to an organization by enhancing operational efficiency through the implementation of flexible workforce systems that align with business seasonality. When joining organizations, I often observe how they match demand and supply using internal resources, outsource partners, or a hybrid approach. It becomes apparent

Driving Contact Center Excellence: Powering Performance with Two Key Metrics

Data abundance has revolutionized contact centers, unleashing a torrent of performance metrics. Amidst this wealth of information, distinguishing core business metrics from the rest can be perplexing. Let me share two meticulously tracked metrics that guide my contact center operations. First Metric: Operational Efficiency This metric represents how efficiently the

4 key visualization graphs for WFM

"Visualization gives you answers to questions you didn't know you had." - Ben Schneiderman Data visualization is crucial in the contact center world, and I strive for simplicity. Here are my top 4 graphs for concise and efficient data presentation: Line Graph: Illustrates metric changes over

How to effectively present WFM solutions to senior leaders

"The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives."  - Tony Robbins Presenting to senior leaders on a WFM solution can be daunting if you haven't done it before, but it's actually a great opportunity to get

Ten points to remember when creating schedules for new schedulers!

As a new scheduler, creating optimized schedules for associates can be overwhelming and anxiety-inducing. Let me help alleviate those emotions and provide guidance! 1. Align with the business's Hours of Operations to determine the necessary schedule coverage. For example, if other departments or vendors provide support, you may

What is shrinkage and how should it be managed?

Shrinkage is a normal part of business operations. A helpful analogy from a business perspective is the way grocery stores handle fresh produce, which cannot remain in inventory indefinitely. As these products expire, the stores incur expenses when they are discarded. Contact centers that employ frontline associates also need to

The ONE benefit of a Workforce Management System and how to succeed with it

I have experience implementing workforce management systems for businesses of all sizes. During vendor presentations, it can seem like these systems can do it all, from real-time monitoring, scheduling to capacity planning. However, the main reason to invest in a workforce system is to gain insight into your department'

What channel costs more to service?

Historically, most contact centers began by exclusively servicing clients through the phone channel. As communication technology improved, companies started to expand their service options to include chat and tickets. If all other metrics remained the same, the cost curve from most expensive to least expensive would go from phone to

The Key Ingredients of a Simple CX Capacity Plan

One of the most significant operating expenses for any organization is the headcount, and optimizing it is crucial. Capacity planning is a valuable skill that every aspiring or experienced frontline leader should have in their toolkit. It involves some basic math skills—addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are all you