WFM Performance Measurement, Part I: Forecast Accuracy

This is the first of a 3-part series that will tackle the somewhat elusive application of effective performance measurements for your workforce management team.  I call it 'elusive' because it is apparent in almost every workforce management role I have served, or for every client I have consulted with, that these measurements have been in great need of implementation or improvement.

Workforce management professionals, by nature, are analytical, scrupulous, and (at times) frustrated with a lack of tangible, numerical data--they need to be graded, and assessed on some sort of a black-and-white, mathematical scale.  Telling them that they're 'doing a good job' is less satisfying and motivating than telling them (as an example) that they're not doing a good job because their forecast accuracy performance was 5% out of acceptable variance range.

For those of you who are not by nature or work experience WFM professionals, this series (hopefully) will help.  The series is broken into three parts in order to tackle the major aspects of workforce management service and support in the contact center: (i) forecasting, (ii) scheduling, and (iii) intraday/real-time management.

Schedule Adherence & Conformance, Part III: Target Setting & Implementation

In Part I: Introduction & Definitions, we established an understanding of metrics used in the contact center that assess actual fulfilment of the best-laid plans of forecasting and scheduling; in Part II: Impacts to the Contact Center, we discussed the importance of adherence and conformance in very basic terms--how much money do I stand to lose without measuring adherence and conformance?

This final instalment suggests ways to set targets appropriately, and provides some ideas as to how to implement new adherence and conformance accountabilities for your organization without alienating employees or operations management personnel.

Schedule Adherence & Conformance, Part II: Impacts to the Contact Center

In Part I, Introductions & Definitions, we introduced ourselves to adherence and conformance--the qualitative and quantitative sides of fulfilment for workforce management forecasts and schedules.   In this instalment, we get into more detail about financial and service implications for the contact center.

It's just a few minutes here and there.  What's the big deal?

The table below shows what happens when we have 350 contacts per hour with an average handle time (AHT) of 320 seconds (or 62 agents worth of workload).  Let’s assume we had planned to have 69 Agents in chairs to handle those calls in order to deliver an ASA of less than 20 seconds.  What happens if just 5% of our staff (in this case, 4 people) are not adhering to their work schedule during this period?  Note what happens with 65 staff in place:

Schedule Adherence & Conformance, Part I: Introduction & Definitions

Dubious management of schedule adherence and conformance can disengage employees, impact customer satisfaction, and cost serious amounts of cash.  That's fancy-talk for "we could all be out of a job".  This series of posts is aimed at helping contact center professionals grasp the fundamentals of adherence and conformance, and outline a roadmap for successful implementation (or correction), and control.

Schedule adherence and conformance management is tantamount to forecast and schedule accuracy, in that it is a set of metrics that measures the quality of actual work versus a pre-determined plan, i.e. schedules developed to cover forecast requirements.

Simply put, even with accurate forecasts and effective schedules, if your Agents' adherence and conformance results are below an acceptable threshold, you're going to miss your service targets, and send customers packing for another less-frustrating service option...namely, a competitor.

The WFM Manifesto

Regardless of the particular product or service supported by any contact center, customers expect three main things:

• Customers expect their contacts (i.e. calls, e-mails, chat sessions) to be answered quickly.

• Customers expect to deal with somebody with enough skill to respond to their needs.

• Customers expect cheerful, motivated, and responsive interaction.

Hitting that sweet-spot of cost-driven operational improvements and excellence in service quality is what workforce management (WFM) is all about, and in order for WFM to be a successful endeavor, its presence needs not only to empower managers, but individual agents as well. Sounds like common sense, does it not? Surprisingly, this is more of a guerrilla mindset than one would think. With WFM processes, tools, and technology focused on agent empowerment and customer experience, the most significant challenges facing contact center managers today become solvable, simple problems. A robust and effective WFM implementation should: