By Tom Lockwood
Traditional contact center performance reporting springs from the unquestioned ability of automatic call distribution systems to generate statistics—lots of them. Standard practice in most contact centers over the last several years has been to extract these statistics and bundle them into regular production reports.
These do a good job of helping management identify long-term trends and correlations and of providing the information required by government agencies that mandate service levels. However, the reports are static—snapshots of call center activity that are out of date as soon as they are generated. The broad, general view they provide is largely irrelevant to effective day-to-day operations, and the time spent determining which information is important is time that managers, supervisors, and analysts could spend coaching agents and performing other truly managerial tasks.
Enter the domain of contact center analytics. Analytics deliver rapid access to actionable data, a benefit that traditional reporting cannot provide. This is because an analytical application is a focused, efficient management tool that:
- Chooses information based on predefined application logic that managers can tailor to specific industries, activities and business drivers
- Delivers different types of information to different users depending on their job function
- Offers an easy-to-use interface allowing users to drill down to a more granular level of detail to understand what is happening in the contact center
- Includes tools for communicating with center staff and taking swift corrective action when performance is not aligned with business requirements
Applying analytics to WFM is conceptually quite simple. The application extracts the necessary information from WFM software, and then presents it in the form of key performance indicators (KPIs). Because these indicators have been proven by domain experts to affect contact center efficiency and effectiveness, management can run the application out of the box without needing initial consulting services. In some applications, KPIs can also be customized to a center’s unique needs.
KPIs are typically displayed on dashboards that are tailored to the job requirements of specific groups such as agents, supervisors, managers, and control desk staff. Each dashboard displays only function-specific information and offers each user group the right degree of control. Displays are clear and easy to understand. Navigation is flexible and intuitive and is based on the requirements of each group.
For managers, analytics provide a rich assortment of tools for performance improvement. Managers, supervisors, and control desk staff can change target performance objectives for agents, agent groups, or the entire enterprise. And software can be configured to send automatic email notifications to staff members affected by a change.
What makes analytical applications such a revolutionary advance over traditional reporting techniques is the effect they have on contact center efficiency, productivity, and communication. With their ability to distribute KPIs throughout a contact center, WFM analytics applications enable staff to understand management decisions and to buy into them.
Agents who are not meeting their targets now have the information necessary to adjust their performance and to talk to their supervisors about causes and solutions. Supervisors can set appropriate individual and group goals as well as coach and motivate agents based on real knowledge of their unique needs. Managers can function on an enterprise level, rather than getting bogged down by extraneous detail.
The net effect of analytical applications is that, in relatively short order, the contact center is able to move from a focus on number crunching to true teamwork and leadership.