Call Center Schedule Exceptions

Handling exceptions is a key component to workforce schedule compliance. Exceptions must be managed in a way the minimizes their impact on productivity and availability, since both will have a negative impact on service levels and also quality of service.

There are four types of exceptions:

Pre-planned
These would include vacation days, training days and work time spent on other necessities such as team meetings.

Unplanned
Sick days and downtime due to technical issues would qualify as unplanned exceptions.

Unplanned but pre-approved
These are schedule deviations initiated by management to maintain performance levels.

Unplanned and not pre-approved
These tend to be reactionary, caused by meetings that run long or added coaching sessions.

Regardless of the exception type, the goal remains the same – customer service consistency and meeting company goals for schedule adherence.

Call Center Schedule Exception Calendar

 
This can be achieved with workforce management software, which provides real-time adherence data that streamlines call center schedule exception tracking, making it easier for managers to maintain service levels, to know which agents are excepted at any given time (and the reason for the exception, whether it’s a day off or time spent in training) and to review reporting data. The solution should also provide an easier method for shift swapping, with management approval.

Multi-Channel Agent Skill Scheduling for Contact Centers

Call centers are contact centers now, which means customers are interacting with agents through a range of channels including emails and live online chat. According to some studies, more than 25% of all customer interactions are now conducted via methods other than the telephone.

One of the goals of any 21st century contact center is to offer the right mix of channels and find an accurate method for multi-channel forecasting and scheduling of agents. The customer experience should be equally positive regardless of how communication is made. 

The challenge is how to offer consistent standards of customer engagement through multiple touch points.The solution is an optimized integrated platform that encompasses data on workforce management, agent skill sets, metrics, scheduling and reporting.

Tips for Multi-Channel Skills Scheduling
Multi-channel scheduling begins with a specification of service goals based on the types of channels the call center must handle, followed by agent skill assessment within each of these channels.

Once these standards are set, scheduling will require accurate calculation of the Average Handle Time (AHT) for each contact channel. This is easier to do with calls than with emails or chats where agent can handle multiple chats at the same time for example. A workforce management system takes these differences into consideration. With this information, the call center manager has two options to choose from:

Dedicated Agent Pools
Once an agent’s skill sets are determined, he or she can be assigned to a dedicated group that focuses solely or primarily on their best channel, whether that is inbound calls, emails or web chat.

The Universal Queue
With this method, all contacts are routed to agents based on order and availability. While this is a less specialized method for handing multiple channels, it does force agents to become adept at handling the various methods of customer communication in a shorter time span.

Workforce management provides the necessary metrics on channels and personnel skills to allow managers to make the best decisions for their contact center. You can watch a short video about multi-channel scheduling and staffing to learn more about this. Agents will be placed in situations where their skills can be maximized, thus improving productivity, morale and customer satisfaction – which is also great for the bottom line.

When Call Centers Become Contact Centers - the Impact on Workforce Management

While the “call center” designation is likely to stick around for a while, agent interaction via telephone is now just one component of customer communication. Today, the public may reach out via email, online chat or social media. All of these additional channels are ultimately beneficial, but many call centers are just beginning to grasp the impact they will have - from a customer engagement perspective, but also from a workforce management perspective.

Email/Live Chat
Written exchanges of information, whether via email or text chat, have become commonplace. However, these channels work best with simple questions and conflict resolutions where a few sentences from both participants will suffice. Once the point has been reached where the number of exchanged messages tops 5-10, it might be advisable to switch to a telephone conversation.

With online chat, it may take longer to complete a customer interaction, simply because it takes longer to type a message than to say it. However, online chat agents can manage up to five sessions simultaneously, which will impact productivity and scheduling. If five proves too many (measure response times to each customer to determine this), three ongoing sessions might be a more practical limit.

When it comes to workforce management scheduling, you will want chat agents with proven written skills. While the Internet has done no shortage of damage to the disciplines of spelling, grammar and punctuation, it is vital that any written communication from your company to customers is free of such errors.

Social Media
A Facebook page and a Twitter account are great ways for companies to announce new products and specials and exchange ideas with customers. They are less effective for such traditional call center functions as handling orders and returns or resolving disputes. However, this too is changing rapidly.

If the call center is to take the lead on establishing and maintaining a company’s social media presence, adequate resources must be made available to do so, to make certain pages are updated, questions are answered, and ongoing communications are having a positive impact on branding and customer loyalty.

That starts with creating and scheduling a social media team based on experience and training. Agents should not just be familiar with these outlets, but be well versed on the company’s social media strategy and best practices.

And, as with email and online chat, choose agents and experts with written communication skills, and when a problem arises try to route that customer back to a call-in situation where it might be easier to resolve the situation verbally.

Each of these new communication channels should get included into your overall forecasting, scheduling and staffing planning process.

5 Tips for More Accurate Call Center Forecasting

Call Center Forecasting Tools and Methods

Unlike weather forecasting, call center forecasting can be performed with a high degree of accuracy. Workforce management solutions combine the use of historic data and real-time data, to not only improve the efficiency at a call center, but to create projections for future growth, changes and special events, so the call center can be prepared for any eventual scenario.

Here are five tips to help you make the most of you call center forecasting solution:

1. Use Historic Data
This is the obvious place to start. Historical call volume data can be used to analyze present performance and future growth trends. It can also serve to correct assumptions about what constitutes an appropriate length of a customer engagement, how many calls an agent should handle in one shift, and other factors that impact hiring and staffing procedures. Several weeks of data is usually sufficient as a starting point, but longer-term projections would require months or years of data, especially for seasonal or annual projections.

2. Run Scenarios Based on Data
With workforce management a call center manager does not have to wait for something to happen to gauge the effectiveness of call center response. Staffing and service levels can be analyzed ahead of time by creating a what-if scenario. Typical scenarios would include the start of a new advertising campaign that will increase call volume, a discount on a key product line, or a turnover in personnel that results in a higher number of less experienced agents on the same shift.

3. Leverage Past Events
How did the opening of a new retail location affect call volume to the call center? How did call patterns change during the holiday season? By reviewing past events, a call center can be better prepared for future occurrences, and adjust accordingly. This data can also impact long-term strategies for planning, budgeting and recruitment.

4. Leverage Real-Time Data
Every call to a call center is a forecasting tool. Real-time analysis of individual calls and calls handled within an hour, a day, etc. can lead to adjustments on the fly and more accurate forecasting in the days and weeks to come. Among the most important measurements here are the speed with which calls are answered, average call-handling times, percentage of calls abandoned, and number of interactions on hold.

5. Multi-Channel Forecasting
Customer communication is not handled only through a telephone anymore. With the introduction of multi-channel environments (email, fax, Internet), customers now have a wide range of options, and an equally wide range of expectations in how a company responds to their needs. While this makes forecasting more complex, it is a necessity for any workforce management solution to incorporate multi-channel capabilities. This makes it easier to discover, for example, how many customer engagements are now handled via email, how that impacts call volume to a call center, and how that center should adjust to meet its service goals.

To learn more, you can also watch one of our forecasting and scheduling videos in our new demo center.

Workforce management for contact centers

What makes workforce management software for contact centers so critical? Well, when customers are contacting your center, you have only seconds or minutes to take their call (before they hang up) or when you have agents ready and there are no calls, you are wasting money and resources. Especially for smaller and medium sized centers, higher fluctuations in call volumes make it more difficult to accurately forecast and then schedule agents that deliver a high service level, while also controlling costs. Here are key workforce management capabilities that make managing your workforce more effective and easier:

• Forecast simulation: Simulations help calculate a more precise forecast for future call volume, agent requirements and average handle time for any time interval of the day, based on historical data from your ACD.
• Scheduling of all activities: Scheduling engines should incorporate all call types and other activities to generate staffing schedules that optimize a wide range of factors, including agent availability, skills, holidays, breaks and service levels.
• Exception handling: Integrated exception calendars help simplify scheduling of agent exceptions such as time off and one-time or recurring training meetings.
• Intra-day management: Graphical display of agents' schedules provide alerts and better help manag breaks, lunches and other exceptions in your contact center.
• Real-time adherence: Real-time views and comparison of planned agent activity with actual activities, as well as of forecasted and actual call volumes, handle times and other key performance indicators throughout the day.

 To learn more, you can watch a series of workforce management videos on our website.

Call center schedule tips

We have created a list of seven practical tips for call center scheduling to not only keep your call center running efficiently, but also maintain high service levels, and keep costs under control. We would like to share these tips with you and hope it proves to be useful in your daily call center operations.

You can download the whitepaper by clicking this link 7 Tips for more effective call center scheduling. If you are also interested in schedule adherence, you can also download our whitepaper with the topic: Practical strategies for improving call center schedule adherence.

Contact Center Scheduling and Forecasting Functionality

What are the key functional components of a scheduling and forecasting solution for a contact center? Here is a quick overview:

• Forecasting: Ability to run simulations to calculate a precise forecast for future call volume, agent requirements and average handle time for any time interval of the day, based on historical data from your ACD system.
  
• Scheduling: The scheduling module should incorporate all call types and other call and non-call related activities to generate staffing schedules that optimize a wide range of factors, including agent availability, skills, holidays, breaks, training and service levels.
  
• Exception handling: Integrated exception calendar to simplify scheduling of agent exceptions such as time off and one-time or recurring training meetings.
  
• Real-time adherence: Ability to compare planned agent activity to actual activities throughout the day, as well as real-time views of forecast and actual call volumes, handle times and other key performance indicators.
• Intra-day management: Graphical display of agents' schedules with drag-and-drop functionality to quickly manage breaks, lunches and other exceptions. Real-time updates can be made to required and assigned agents instantly, and display surpluses and shortages for each time period of the day.
  
• Agent - supervisor collaboration: Enables easy and efficient agent-supervisor interaction and collaboration, such as exceptions, schedule bids or swap requests and critical reports. Agents get empowered to be more directly involved in the scheduling process by entering exceptions or bids and viewing their schedules at any time.
  
• Configuration & administration: Ability to set up unlimited number of center splits or agent groups, each with its own set of service objectives and guidelines. Management of multiple sites and time zones. Ability to set hours of operation by day of week, and service level goals down to 15-minute intervals if desired.
  
• Metrics and reporting: Ability to report and analyze all agent activities including their schedule adherence and key performance indicators. Managers need to get actionable insights through tools such as call center dashboards, Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and real-time alerts.

If you are interested in seeing a solution in action, please take a look at a contact center forecasting and scheduling demo on our website.

Schedule Adherence for Call Centers - A Strategy Whitepaper

Schedule Adherence still seems one of the top challenges for call centers. This new whitepaper talks about the challenges and how to overcome those, helping call center managers and supervisors better manage adherence. The paper discusses the following topics:

• How to identify the issues that cause out-of-adherence
• How to monitor and measure adherence
• How to work with your team on improving schedule adherence
  
• How to establish an "adherence culture"
• How to use tools to better monitor adherence

If you still struggle with out-of-adherence issues, or can’t reach and maintain your targeted adherence level, then this whitepaper is for you.

Contact center scheduling and forecasting overview

Scheduling contact center staff is the "art and science" of having the right number of employees, with the right skills at the right times to meet anticipated call volumes (and other communication channels such as email, chat , social media). And all this has to happen with a targeted service level and at minimal costs. Contact center forecasting and scheduling is a critical task and poor planning and execution can have a negative impact on revenues and cost, customer satisfaction and also employees motivation. Key tasks of contact center scheduling include the following activities:

1. Call Forecasting - Calculation of call volumes based on key parameters:

• Call history data
• Call patterns (day, week, season, etc.)
• Special day patterns (holidays, etc.)
• Other event or business drivers that might impact call volume/pattern (sales campaign)
  

2. Staffing requirements - Calculation of staffing needs based on:

• Service level, ASA and average handle time
• Type of calls (required skills)
  
• Anticipated workload

3. Schedule - Creation of a schedule for every day based on your unique needs:

• 15 or 30 minute increments
• Consideration of all activities (call and non-call)
• Flexibility regarding start/end times, breaks, etc.
  
• Multi-skill routing

4. Schedule Adherence - Monitoring and managing adherence as team effort:

• Inform and educate about adherence importance and impact
• Measure and manage adherence throughout the day (real-time adherence)
• Provide incentives for adherence
  

5. Exception handling - "Stuff happens", be prepared to manage exceptions and changes throughout the day:

• Changes in call volume or arrival pattern (campaigns, external events, etc.)
  
• Staffing or scheduling issues (training, sick, absenteeism, etc.)
  
• Business related exceptions

6. Measure Success - Define what "success" means for you center and measure & adjust accordingly:

• Analyze hourly/daily/weekly reports
• What worked, what didn't? Investigate causes for under-performance
• Apply "learnings" into future forecasting/scheduling process

Every contact center is different, but one of the most challenging tasks from the above list for every center is most likely schedule adherence. If you would like to learn more, please download our whitepaper "How to improve schedule adherence in your call center" and discover new ways that might work for your contact center.