Mobile Workforce Management for Call Centers

Mobile devices allow call center managers to stay in touch with what’s happening at their business from home or on the road. Such flexibility is an advantage, however, that doesn’t mean the workforce management features available on a mobile device have to be as comprehensive as those you can access from the office.

In almost all cases, forecasting, staffing and scheduling will be done on a desktop or laptop, where the full range of metrics that would influence such decisions are accessible. With a cloud-based solution, there is some mobility and flexibility already "built-in", since workforce planning and scheduling can be done on any computer or even a tablet from anywhere with Internet access. 

So, what is the more realistic usage scenario for mobile workforce management for contact centers? When you’re on the road, or in an airport, or taking a day off to attend your son’s soccer game, and you just need to check in or obtain a status report, there’s no need to have every workforce management feature on your phone or tablet. As long as you get automated alerts and key metrics, and take action on any adherence issues that require immediate attention, that should be all you will want or need from mobile capabilities. We think that mobile WFM for contact centers is based on two main use cases:

• Automatically getting alerts of key metrics (e.g. adherence, service level, call volumes, etc.)
• Immediately taking action by logging into the web-based WFM solution from wherever you are

We would like to hear from you about your mobile workforce management needs. Please contact us, we are looking forward to talking to you.

Workforce Management Solution 101 - what's important?

While different call centers have different needs, it’s hard to imagine a call center that could not benefit from a workforce management (WFM) solution. Whatever the specific goals of your business – lowering costs, improving efficiency, better customer service – workforce management can help to achieve them.

But how should you select a WFM solution? Here are the key capabilities to look for, and why they are important.

• Call Volume Forecast – by using historical data and real-time ACD integration, the system should produce accurate forecasts that will impact scheduling.
• Schedule Creation – The system should be able to create schedules based on shift patters, skill levels and other criteria.  
• Intra-Day Changes/Exceptions – No two days are alike in any call center. WFM should be able to consider variables and perform ‘on the fly’ scheduling when needed. It should also be able to measure agent adherence on both typical and atypical days. 
• Real-time Metrics - Getting alerts when something is not working as planned, and tracking performance and adherence metrics in real-time on a dashboard are critical.
• Implementation – How long does the system take to install, and how long before it begins to pay for itself? Will additional hardware or software purchases be necessary? How long will it take to train agents on its proper usage? Anything too complex may end up having the opposite effect on efficiency. 
• Cost – Calculate both upfront and ongoing costs of installation, implementation, integration, maintenance and support.

Our brief workforce management software selection guide provides more details and helps you ask the right questions to find the best solution for your call center.

Workforce Management Software Selection for Contact Centers

When choosing the best workforce management (WFM) solution for your call center, there are a number of considerations to review based on that center’s specific needs. The goal is to increase efficiency and service levels, while also reducing costs. Here are ten important evaluation criteria for any WFM software solution.

1. Capabilities
What can the software do for your call center? Its capabilities should include accurate call volume forecasting from historical data and ACD integration, flexible schedule creation that incorporates foreseen and unforeseen variables, agent exceptions, intra-day changes to both forecasting and scheduling, and performance management reports.

2. Implementation
Calculate how long the software will take to implement, including installation, configuration, customization and training - weeks, months, years?

3. Integration
How well will the system work with your existing systems, for such necessities as sharing of vital data? Will this be possible out of the box, or will custom integration be required?

4. Cost
Incorporate upfront costs, ongoing monthly or maintenance costs, and any hidden costs in your consideration. Can the system be used over the web without equipment purchase?

5. Usability
How long will it take for mangers, supervisors and agents to get comfortable with the system? Is it confusing? Are there too many features that you may not need, but that can complicate usage?

6. Unification
How unified will the user experience be across solution components? Will the dashboards show everything you need to monitor a call and discover how and where corrections should be made?

7. Metrics
Besides forecasting, scheduling and adherence, other key WFM metrics that should be able to be reviewed via dashboard include call answer times, first call resolutions and transfer rates.

8. Scalability
Can the solution grow with your call center? Can users, modules and additional functionality be added without additional hardware costs or other expensive implementation?

9. Risk
What happens if the first system you buy doesn’t pan out? Can you return it or stop using it without incurring any financial risk?

10. ROI
What will the return on investment (ROI) be, and how quickly will you recoup you investment in the system? ROI can be hard numbers (e.g. cost savings) and soft benefits (e.g. higher customer satisfaction) - both will have a positive impact to the bottom line.

We have recently updated our workforce management resource center where you can download various documents that might be helpful in your selection process.

What is cloud-based workforce management software?

Cloud computing is a web-based delivery model that enables users to connect with applications on-demand from any computer with Internet access. A cloud-based workforce management solution provides the highest ROI and savings of any WFM strategy due to its low upfront investment and low operating costs. Cloud-based WFM software puts call centers in unprecedented control, enabling dramatic cost savings and making scheduling far more efficient. Compared with traditional workforce management software, a cloud-based WFM solution allows companies to:

• Reduce upfront costs: Eliminate the significant investment just to get started. From purchasing hardware, databases, and software licenses to the high costs of installation and IT staff to support the system, the traditional model simply doesn’t make sense. In stark contrast, cloud-based workforce scheduling software saves both time and money because there are no infrastructure costs.

• Get started faster: Rather than having to ramp-up to a six- to twelve-month (or more) implementation, WFM solutions enable companies to start managing their workforce in the cloud within a matter of weeks. And, since the solution is web-based, integrating the software with existing systems reduces time and costs.

• Connect anywhere:  The software is hosted by the workforce management firm so companies can access the software anywhere—whether on the other side of town or the other side of the world. All they need is a computer and a standard web browser.

• Minimize ongoing costs: Cloud-based WFM software doesn’t just save money during the implementation phase. Companies save time and money in the long-term as well. The WFM firm supports all maintenance of the system, including free software upgrades and troubleshooting. Companies also benefit from the ability to quickly customize or add modules via a single, web-based interface.

• Pay-as-you-go: One of the most attractive features of the solution is the pricing model. Companies only pay for the capacity and infrastructure that are actually used, typically based on number of users. This usage-based, pay-as-you-go subscription pricing approach not only saves businesses money,  Web-based workforce scheduling software also enables them to quickly scale to manage the demands of changing call center sizes.

Cloud-based WFM software lowers the initial infrastructure costs and ongoing maintenance costs of traditional WFM software. This on-the-fly WFM solution also gives call center managers the tools to schedule the right number of agents at the right skill level at the right time, increase overall schedule adherence, boost service levels, and improve both agent and customer satisfaction. To learn more about this topic, please download our What is cloud-based Workforce Management whitepaper.

The Business Value of Workforce Management Software - Part 2

In our previous blog about the value of workforce management software we talked about the business challenges, now, let’s take a look at the key value drivers of WFM software compared to the manual/spreadsheet approach:

• Reduces administrative time: Automated WFM drastically reduces the administrative time spent on forecasting and scheduling, data gathering of call history, and creation of management reports. Most call centers see a reduction by a large percentage  after implementation.

• Slashes shrinkage and optimizes schedules: WFM precisely measures the sources of agent shrinkage and provides tools to reduce its occurrence. Managers can create staffing schedules that optimize a wide range of critical success factors, such as agent skills and availability, breaks and holidays, skill types, historical and predicted call volume, budgets, and service levels. Skills-based scheduling and routing processes enable call center managers to assign skill levels and types to individual agents, and then automatically route a specific type of call to a specific agent who will best be able to resolve the customer’s issue quickly and more effectively. In addition, they can take advantage of flexible start and end times.

• Precisely forecasts demand: Automated WFM solutions use historical data to accurately predict the number of agents needed to handle the center's volume in real-time, and allow managers to predict future call volume, handle times, agent occupancy, first call resolution rate, and other service levels. Managers can also run multiple forecast/schedule scenarios, and have the ability to better forecast special days such as holidays and other scheduled time off. It also enables managers to forecast agent requirements based on service level agreements, as well as refine forecasts and performance goals based on collected data. More accurate forecasts ensure more efficient schedules, which prevents under or over-staffing.

• Increases productivity and service quality: WFM software gives managers the ability to compare forecasts with available agent schedules to find time-pockets throughout the day where agents would sit idle, and then use that time for training, coaching, and meetings.

The bottom line? Lower expenses, higher revenues and productivity, and improved service levels and customer satisfaction. A manual/spreadsheet approach simply doesn’t measure up.

What About ROI and Payback Time?
The large return on investment and fast payback time make WFM software the clear choice when compared with any other method of managing a workforce, forecasting call volumes and creating schedules. A workforce management solution helps call centers realize a high ROI by:

• Providing more accurate forecasting and scheduling to reduce agent under-staffing and over-staffing

• Improving agent schedule adherence to reduce shrinkage

• Enhancing supervisor efficiency by spending more time coaching and allowing agents to use the software’s self-service scheduling features

• Reducing overtime expenses of agents by monitoring intra-day statistics and anticipating when additional agent resources will be needed

• Decreasing agent turnover by enabling agents to manage their own schedules and empowering them to improve performance by reviewing their individual metrics

For more information you can also download the "how to calculate cost savings for workforce management software" whitepaper.

The Business Value of Workforce Management Software - Part 1

Persuading senior management to change “business-as-usual” call center systems can be a difficult undertaking. The management team often faces both internal and external factors that make it resistant to change. A challenging economic environment also puts pressure on all areas of the organization to implement solutions that reduce costs and increase revenues—all while improving performance and productivity. As each solution competes for investment dollars, only a select few offering the highest ROI will obtain funding.

This short article helps you make the business case for workforce management automation. We will discuss:

• Business impact (manual vs. automated solutions)
• Benefits (savings, service levels, employee morale, customer satisfaction)
• ROI (payback time of investment)

A common misconception is that workforce management software is associated with a large investment. In fact, it delivers significant value to the top and bottom line with a minimal investment. In addition, an automated WFM solution is aligned with a company’s goals of saving money and increasing revenue, productivity, and service levels—and it even starts paying for itself within months instead of years.

Manual/Spreadsheet Processes

Many call centers that don’t use workforce management systems typically rely on spreadsheets. Therefore, let’s first look at a few of the limitations of using spreadsheets to manage a workforce. These inefficient manual systems have a huge impact on the performance of a call center in many areas every day, including:

• Capturing data: ACD systems that provide massive amounts of data must be manually typed into spreadsheets, inevitably resulting in typing errors and wasting the valuable time of call center supervisors who could be training agents, analyzing trends, optimizing schedules, and performing other productive tasks.

• Overstaffing and understaffing: The spreadsheet approach to forecasting and scheduling often leads to overstaffing and understaffing, which results in lower service levels and an increase in payroll costs. Customer satisfaction suffers when customers have to wait for long periods to get their issues resolved.

• Schedule adherence: Tracking schedule adherence using spreadsheets gives managers headaches. It also needlessly wastes time and money whereas automated WFM solutions make it easy for agents to precisely follow their schedules. Shrinkage can become a huge problem for any size call center. For instance, in a call center of fifty agents, occupancy is critical. If five agents take breaks or go to lunch at the same time, occupancy decreases by ten percent and service levels go with it. An automated solution prevents this from happening by carefully optimizing agent schedules and forecasts, and sending alerts by out-of-adherence. A manager using a manual system may be tempted to hire additional agents, while the manager with an automated system has the data at his fingertips to accurately optimize future agent schedules to dramatically reduce shrinkage.

• Spotting trends: It is difficult to spot long-term trends over weeks and months with a manual system. This data is priceless for accurately forecasting and scheduling agents in the future, special events and other seasonal patterns.

• Agent retention: One of the many reasons agents leave is because staffing in a spreadsheet system seems random and fixed, while not considering their personal needs. Agent morale decreases and turnover increases when agents do not understand schedules and what’s expected of them.

A spreadsheet based process might work for a few small contact centers, but it is clearly costly and wasteful in terms of time, money, and productivity for many others. Call center managers typically cannot wait to get their hands on a better solution to manage their workforce. The savvy ones are eager to present senior management with an automated workforce management solution to enhance efficiency, increase performance, and realize a high ROI. We will talk about ROI drivers in our next blog post, please stay tuned. In the meantime, you can also download a few workforce management whitepapers from our call center resources library to learn more.

Workforce management software vendor guide

Selecting and deciding on the right workforce software for your call center is crucial. In case you missed the recent buying and vendor guide about workforce management and optimization software in Enterprise Apps Today magazine, please read on. The article lists four leading Workforce Optimization and Management vendors and Monet Software is proud to be one of them.

Here is an analyst quote from the article: “Workforce management applications are designed to automate the deployment of the workforce through workload planning, scheduling, time and attendance tracking, resource management, and rules and compliance management,” said Lisa Rowan, an analyst at IDC. “Increasingly, workforce management applications are being integrated into customer relationship management applications in a contact center environment.” Some of the key features of WFM, Rowan says, are skills and certification tracking, shift/vacation bidding, workload planning, forecasting, scheduling, scheduling optimization, customer wait-time forecasts, coverage management and absence management.

If you are interested in seeing these solutions in action, please visit our workforce optimization demo center.

Workforce Optimization Software Buying Guide for Call Centers

The software application magazine Enterprise Apps Today just published an article about workforce optimization software for call centers. It talks about the importance of workforce optimization as part of the overall call center strategy and highlights several vendors, interviews with executives and a buying guide for call center workforce optimization software.

Monet Software is mentioned as one of the leading vendors for workforce optimization software in the article. Please click this link to read the full article.

VOIP call recording unified with workforce management in the cloud

The integration of VOIP call center recording software with workforce management (WFM) as a combined workforce optimization solution can result in more efficiencies, cost savings and overall improved call center performance:

Simplify Agent Administration
Consolidate your user management activities through centralized administration. This saves time and reduces cost; also avoiding "siloed" user databases and redundant user/agent management.

Improved Performance
Better investigative capabilities and call center insights, metrics and alerts across multiple functions help make more informed and faster decisions, resulting in optimized call center performance.

Easy Data Sharing
Data collected by both, call recording software and WFM software, can be easily shared between supervisors, managers, trainers, analysts and even groups of agents.

Better Collaboration across Teams
One way to expedite improvements is to create cross-functional teams that can work together on such challenges as optimal scheduling and improving the quality of each customer call. When call center recording and WFM are in sync, informational silos are eliminated and customer service improves.

Lower Costs
By using a unified solution of call recording and WFM software, a call center can lower some costs and eliminate others, such as the need for third-party integration. A call center can reduce overhead expenses by centralizing all administrative functions in a single source.

For more information about this topic, please also see our call recording blog.

How Workforce Management Software and Call Recording Software work together

It’s common knowledge that workforce management software and call recording software are powerful tools for contact centers to improve quality, service levels and productivity. But today’s complex customer interactions require more than a set of disjoint call center tools. More and more call centers implement unified workforce optimization solutions, that enable them to connect all aspects of scheduling, skills, quality, metrics and compliance to better meet customer needs and deliver more effective customer service. Managers and supervisors can easily identify patterns and analyze metrics at various levels for training and quality assurance purposes and establish quality standards and best practices. For example, if they notice a potential issue, such as out-of-adherence they might get to the root cause by retrieving selected call recordings and then develop tailored training and coaching programs to address it. Our new call recording whitepaper will answer two key questions:

• First, we will take a look at why call recording is essential for every call center
• Second, we will discuss how call recording as part of a unified workforce optimization solution can deliver even greater benefits, allowing you to “connect the dots” and get the whole picture to quickly improve call center performance.

Download this whitepaper and learn why call recording software is a must-have for your call center and how its integration with cloud-based workforce management takes call center performance to a whole new level.

Workforce management and optimization in the cloud

The Cloud-based model for workforce management software uses a new multi-tenant and scalable architecture that was designed to efficiently and securely deliver web-based applications at the lowest possible cost. It focuses on fast set up, low operating costs through shared services, high security for web-based deployment and high performance and scalability through instant and seamless scaling of computer resources (also called "elastic cloud computing"). 

• Lower operating costs: With the Cloud provider managing the IT infrastructure, costs are lowered by securely sharing IT infrastructure and resources, avoiding "hidden costs" for hardware replacements, upgrades, and IT operation resources that are typical for premise-based software.
• Ease of use: The new web-based user interface of Cloud-computing solutions focus strongly on usability, ensuring an easy to use software. This helps to drive fast user adoption within your organization.

For more information, please download our cloud-based workforce management whitepaper.

Workforce management software for call centers: How to convince your executive team

Persuading senior management to change “business-as-usual” call center systems can be a difficult undertaking. A challenging economic environment puts pressure on all areas of the organization to implement solutions that reduce costs and increase revenues—all while improving performance and productivity. As each solution competes for investment dollars, only a select few offering the highest ROI will obtain funding.

Here are three key steps to make your case:

• Business impact: What does it “cost” you to continue using manual processes or spreadsheets? Please see also our posts about spreadsheet based contact center scheduling and the cost of out-of-adherence.
• Benefits: What are the key benefits you can realize with a WFM solution? Please see how does WFM impact call center staffing and the ROI of Workforce Management Software.
• ROI: What is the return or payback time for the WFM investment? A common misconception is that WFM software is associated with a large investment. In fact, new cloud-based WFM can deliver significant value to the top and bottom line with a minimal investment. A cloud-based WFM solution provides the highest ROI and savings of any WFM strategy due to its low upfront investment and low operating costs. Please read WFM software comparison - cloud versus installed software.

If you need help presenting the benefits of an automated WFM solution to your management team please see our workforce management ROI white papers or contact us and we are happy to answer your questions, share some ROI tools and provide guidance.

Extend the value of workforce management software with call recording

The goal of workforce management is to create a more productive work environment through the planning, management tracking and analysis of such vital activities as agent performance, forecasting, scheduling, and adherence. 

With call recording software solutions, it’s possible to capture valuable intelligence from agent-customer interactions, and thus improve both service levels and service quality / sales conversions. Data gathered from customer contacts makes it easier to forecast the length of future calls, find out why some calls take longer, and respond accordingly with training or changes in procedure. Call recording software can also assist with assessment of agents’ skills and performances, allowing for skill-based routing and scheduling. Please read more about this topic on our call recording and monitoring blog.

Workforce Management Software Selection Guide for Call Centers

Every call center has different needs. Size, structure, industry, type of calls and many other factors determine your unique requirements. However, there are some guidelines and key questions you should consider when selecting workforce scheduling software for your call center:

Key Functionality:

• 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.
• Scheduling: The scheduling engine 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 calendar to simplify scheduling of agent exceptions such as time off and one-time or recurring training meetings.
• 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.
• Real-time adherence: Ability to compare planned agent activity to actual activities throughout the day, as well as real-time views of forecasted and actual call volumes, handle times and other key performance indicators.
• 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.

Implementation and user adoption - Questions to ask when evaluating the implementation:

• Implementation and setup: How long does it take to implement and configure the solution to your unique needs.
• User setup: How much effort is it to set up users in different locations such as remote and home offices?
• Training: How much effort does it take to learn and productively use the solution?
• Usability: Is the solution easy to use so that users can leverage the full potential of the software?

Total cost of ownership - Evaluate key cost drivers of the software:

• Upfront cost: How much do you have to invest upfront for software licenses, hardware and other software?
• Implementation cost: Costs for internal staff and consultants to implement the software and train the users.
• Ongoing cost: Calculate the internal cost of operation, as well as external cost such as ongoing software maintenance fees, subscription and consultant fees.

Spreadsheets for call center forecasting and scheduling?

The overwhelming majority of ongoing call center expenses are related to staffing (up to 70%). Having the optimum number of staff at the right time in the right place is essential to call center success and profitability. Over-staffing results in needless spending for unnecessary staff, while under-staffing will lower service levels, increase staff turnover and impact your revenues. Two key questions to ask:

• Can a call center really "afford" to use spreadsheets for forecasting and scheduling, since there is so much at stake?
  
• Does workforce management software provide measurable improvements resulting in savings that exceed the cost of the solution?

Here are three things to consider when you evaluate the situation in your call center:

1. More efficient scheduling and agent usage: The savings associated with more efficient scheduling includes reducing overall staff hours and need for overtime and identification of over-staffing. Call centers using WFM systems generally experience a minimum reduction of 2% for staff hours with an average potential savings in the 5 – 10% range.

2. Automation of scheduling tasks: Manual or Excel-based spreadsheet forecasting and scheduling consumes much of a supervisor’s time in many call centers. With WFM it is generally expected that at least 25% of the time currently devoted to manual input can be saved and used for coaching, training, etc.

3. Improved schedule adherence: Many hours of work time are wasted due to excessive non-productive interruptions. A WFM system can provide historical and real-time information on agent schedule adherence and exceptions, for better management and control of staff, reducing workforce shrinkage by 10 to 20 minutes per agent per day. Please read our whitepaper "Strategies for Improving Schedule Adherence" to learn more. Also, there is a related blog post that talks about the "cost of out-of-adherence".

Workforce Management Software Comparison - What Features are Important?

Call center workforce management software automates key tasks that have an immediate impact on the bottom line through more accurate call volume forecasting, optimum scheduling and daily performance tracking. The following is a list of key capabilities to consider when comparing workforce management software:

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 ACD.

Scheduling: The scheduling engine should incorporate all call and non-call activities to generate staffing schedules that optimize a wide range of factors, including agent availability, work rules, skills, holidays, breaks, service levels and center budgets.

Intra-day Management: Graphical display of agents' schedules that can be manipulated by dragging and dropping breaks, lunches and other exceptions make it easy and fast. Real-time updates can be made to required and assigned agents instantly, and display surpluses and shortages for each time period of the day.

Exception Planning: Integrated exception calendar simplify scheduling of agent exceptions such as time off and one-time or recurring training meetings.

Real-time Adherence: Compares planned agent activity to actual activities throughout the day, as well as real-time views of forecasted and actual call volumes, handle times and other key performance indicators.

Configuration & Administration: Ability to build an unlimited number of center splits or agent groups, each with its own set of service objectives and guidelines. Manage multiple sites and time zones. Set hours of operation by day of week, and service level goals down to 15-minute intervals if desired.

Performance Analysis: Easily report and analyze all agent activities including their schedule adherence and key performance indicators. Managers can review service level results, costs and revenue.

ACD Integration: Collect data from your ACD and build a historical database. Capture your center's workload and work time statistics in real time.

Call center workforce management software selection criteria

Here is a list that should be helpful when selecting a workforce management solution:

1. Key functionality to consider:

• ACD integration for call history
• Simulation of forecasts
• Staffing and Scheduling
• Exception handling
• Intra-day management
• Real-time adherence
• Performance metrics reports

2. Implementation of software:

• Time to implement - ready to use.
• Equipment needed (hardware and software)
• Resources needed (internal, vendor, consultants)

3. Total cost of ownership:

• Upfront cost for software, hardware, integration and implementation?
• Ongoing costs for subscription, maintenance, support, upgrade fees?
• Operational costs for IT team, facilities, etc.

4. User adoption:

• Ease of use to make sure software gets used to full extend
• Configurable to meet your unique center needs

5. ROI and Risk:

• Payback time: Benefits versus costs/investment
• Financial risk if solution does not meet your needs

For a more detailed list, please download our Workforce Management Success Kit.

ROI of Workforce Management Software in the Call Center

If you are in the process of selecting a workforce management solution for your call center, you might be interested in learning about the key ROI (return on investment) drivers.

• Time savings in forecasting and scheduling activities leaves more time for supervisors and managers to coach and train their teams
• More accurate forecasting and scheduling helps avoid over- and understaffing - resulting in improved service levels and reduced payroll costs. Better schedules also lower the cost of turn-over due to higher agent motivation and avoidance of burn-out.
  
• Improved schedule adherence improves call center productivity and helps achieve or exceed your service level goals.
• Dependent on the type of call center, the above productivity gains could also lead to increased revenues (= agent have more time for selling).
  

In addition to the WFM solution capabilities that reduce cost, save time or increase revenues, the overall ROI is also driven by other factors such as:

• Ease of use and user adoption: If people don't use it you won't get the benefits of the solution.
• Investment: The ROI is higher the greater the benefits and the lower the costs are. Therefore, the ROI is also driven by the amount of the upfront investment for the software and the implementation. Traditional on-premise software is typically characterized by a large upfront investment. In comparison, cloud based solutions have no and very low up-front costs, helping to get to an ROI faster, typically in months, versus years.

It is important to include all aspects into the ROI calculation when making a decision.

What is Cloud Computing?

Everybody talks about cloud computing, but do you really know what it is, how it works, if it might be something for your business and how it could benefit your call center. There is a great video on YouTube that explains What is Cloud Computing - posted by Salesforce.com. Obviously, this video focuses on CRM, however, the principles are the same for call center software such as workforce management and scheduling.

Apple's iCloud announcement - what are call center managers waiting for?

With Apple's iCloud announcement, cloud computing is really going mainstream. Reading the iCloud announcement makes it so obvious that cloud computing is the future in the connected world. Cloud computing is easier to integrate (any device) and it's easier to scale (almost unlimited storage and performance), it's easier to set up (just turn it on) and it is lower cost (shared infrastructure) . In a recent post we compared workforce management software in the cloud versus on-premise. Here are some additional considerations regarding call center software in the cloud:

1. If your call center uses spreadsheets or other manual means for forecasting/scheduling:

• The increasing complexity of call centers makes it more difficult to efficiently manage forecasting, scheduling and adherence using traditional ways - see recent post about call center shrinkage.
  
• Typically, the monthly savings of using a cloud based WFM solution are higher than the cost of the solution, so you should save money from the get go.
  
• In addition, you can improve service levels and other key call center performance indicators by using a more robust and flexible scheduling solution, compared to spreadsheets.
  

2. If your call center uses on-premise WFM software:

• Traditional WFM software is often complicated to use and therefore does not get fully leveraged, meaning you are not getting all the benefits from the software to realize cost savings and performance improvements.
  
• Calculate what you pay for yearly maintenance of your WFM software, including the internal costs of operating/upgrading servers. Just these costs can be higher than the monthly fee for an all inclusive WFM in the cloud offering.

There are many reasons to switch to the cloud. We hope we inspired you to think about it.