As companies embrace digital possibilities to empower their workforce and re-define the customer experience, Magnus Geverts takes a closer look at what’s next for WFM. Here, he explores how self-scheduling technology is raising the bar for employee autonomy, ushering in a new era of contact center freedom

For many years, contact center leaders have viewed automated Workforce Management (WFM) as their savior, eliminating many hours of time-consuming manual entry to balance their resources effectively. From building efficient schedules that take into account employee preferences, skill sets and training needs to gaining control over the multiple shift types that dominate their increasingly virtual workforce, planners and managers have relied on real-time WFM to manage the complexities of their contact center operations.

Over time, frontline staff too have come to enjoy more control over their working lives through self-service. However, unlike their management who have already had the power to define the working day of the contact center thanks to advances in real-time automation, customer service representatives (CSRs) and other frontline staff have often been left behind. Beyond having increased ability to influence their schedule and request changes, CSRs are generally denied the ability to self-manage their working week or enjoy the same level of flexibility to deal with the unexpected throughout the day – until now.

Recent advancements in WFM like self-scheduling, intraday automation and planning optimization for customer-facing staff are taking workplace autonomy to a whole new level. More freedom for employees means greater freedom to achieve more, for themselves, customers and the business. So, while the concept of self-service for shift preferences, trades, overtime or time-off is nothing new, these latest innovations mark the first time that employees have the power to really manage their own schedules as unexpected life events happen on the day or as appointments pop up in the week ahead. In an instant, staff can move their lunch to take advantage of that last-minute appointment at the hairdresser or if they are planning a weekend away, they are able to move their afternoon break so they can organize it, all this while improving service levels in the contact center.

3 ways to maximize the power of self-scheduling technology for frontline employees

The latest WFM solutions combine the benefits of planning optimization, intraday automation and self-scheduling for frontline employees. They provide a range of practical benefits to CSRs, planners and managers, enabling everyone to control their constantly changing work environment while giving them the tools to elevate the status of the contact center in a highly strategic way. Use autonomous self-scheduling via innovative WFM to:

1. Embrace the new rules of employee engagement
As CX takes center stage, everyone has an important part to play and therefore the emphasis should be on giving CSRs permission to delight customers in their own way. The latest self-scheduling solutions liberate employees with a greater sense of independence, involvement and satisfaction that motivates them to experiment and excel as never before. What is more, CSRs can view their own personal performance KPIs and take part in challenging competitions through gamification, all within a single self-service application.

At the same time, reducing the demand on resource planners and managers for manual intraday and intraweek monitoring and request-handling removes the stress of drowning in frequent, last-minute changes and gives them the freedom to focus on higher-level tasks and CX objectives.

2. Be a great place to work
We often hear about the need for a customer experience that is personalized and frictionless so why shouldn’t it be the same for employees? Today’s emotionally intelligent, multi-skilled CSRs are in high demand and contact centers need to nurture and keep them to boost customer loyalty and drive competitive advantage. Forward-thinking organizations take the well-being of employees and the ability for them to realize their full potential very seriously. They also know that deploying the right technology helps them become progressive workplaces and attractive places to work for current and future employees. Self-scheduling capabilities allow CSRs to make changes to their own schedules throughout the day and for the coming week while enabling team leaders to maximize skills and meet agreed customer service levels – creating a win, win all round.

3. Humanize the workplace
When frontline staff work in a helpful, flexible environment with tools that are accessible from anywhere and enable them to self-serve their working lives even when they are away from the office, they acquire the freedom to focus on delivering exceptional customer service.

Equally, offering self-schedule management in a fair and transparent way builds trust between peers and managers. Within thresholds set by their supervisors or resource planners, CSRs can quickly minimize stress and move break times or lunches to accommodate sudden home emergencies or sickness, all at the click of a button or the swipe of a mobile device.
It’s a totally fresh approach to self-service that humanizes the workplace, empowers and enables staff, whether that is the frontline agent in need of scheduling freedom or the workforce planner drowning in intraday requests.

Learn how your own organization can create a flexible, digitally enabled workforce that increases staff satisfaction, boosts team performance and drives customer success. The latest WFM solutions are designed to help organizations create the best possible employee, as well as customer, experiences. For information on agent Self-Scheduling available now in Teleopti WFM, click below or visit Teleopti.

Magnus Geverts is VP Product Marketing & Management at Calabrio

About Teleopti
Teleopti, a Calabrio company, helps organizations empower their employees to provide outstanding customer service through our cloud-first workforce management (WFM) software. We are a global team of innovators and experts focusing 100% on WFM, enabling companies with user-friendly automation and optimization of omnichannel forecasting, scheduling, and people management. Teleopti WFM supports companies’ profitability by elevating operational efficiency, employee engagement, and customer experience. Since the start of 1992 we have grown our customer community to 100 countries, collaborating with partners worldwide, and today Teleopti WFM plans and empowers over 500,000 employees.

For more information, visit teleopti

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