Tag: Workforce

Workforce Optimization

By Andi Anugrah, Chairman of ICCA Indonesia

Friday two weeks ago, I invited three leaders from 3 leading technology vendors, Genesys, Nice, and Verint. Of course, contact center users are quite familiar with these provider technologies. We discuss workforce optimization in various aspects and its development. We increase labor productivity during the pandemic, in addition to balancing it with service quality. Also discusses the experience of agents and provides adequate tools for them to work.

Present as panelists were Andy Hardy from Genesys, Aryan Sunil from Verint, and Mark Harington from Nice. We also discussed the business objectives of the application of WFO technology. Along with technological developments, we also discuss sentiment analytics, especially customer analysis. There is a need to analyze more customer interaction data, both in real-time and historically. Not only limited to a certain sample but using technology to make it easier to capture various customer feedback. Likewise, we discussed gamification as a tool to motivate agents in various aspects of performance.

The three speakers highlighted that optimizing the workforce in the contact center needs to be a concern as part of the development strategy. For this reason, the contact center needs to integrate information about the workforce include performance management, e-learning, interaction analysis, quality management, and workforce management. It can involve a high-level framework that includes strategic contact center planning, agent recruitment, placement, monitoring, evaluation, improvement, and motivation, as well as corporate accountability and contribution.

Workforce optimization is a customer experience strategy that modernizes contact center technology and platforms. Through the use of digital channels, workforce optimization is for increasing employee engagement and increase customer satisfaction. Workforce optimization integrates technology into a single point of management to increase the visibility of customer interactions, employee performance, and business processes. By analyzing all customer interactions, businesses can leverage insights to train their employees and streamline workflows to improve the overall quality of customer service.

Not to forget, we also discussed the importance of collaboration in the application of technology. The importance of having a partner in building a contact center. For this reason, users need to build engagement with vendors, so they can get maximum results in the application of technology. Well, of course, all speakers are vendors, they hope to build relationships with users so that they can maximize the function of technology and provide benefits according to their business objectives.

In the last four months, we regularly invite contact center industry leaders to be part of the discussion forum. This is a regular event and activity for the Contact Center Association of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC) to build relationships and networking with contact center leaders and executives. Hope you can participate in the next opportunity. Make sure to watch the recording on YouTube, Greetings are healthy and happy. (AA)

Leaders Talk: Realization What Is You Want to Achieve

September 24, 2021 – Interactive discussion initiated by Contact Center Associations of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC), Leaders Talk: Workforce Optimization in Contact Center, which invited three professional speakers in the Asia Pacific contact center.

One of the speakers, who was invited to this discussion is Aryan Sunil. He is Director Practice Backoffice and Retail, Asia Verint. Aryan also explained that optimization or workforce engagement management is evolving and has become very important, especially for the contact center.

This optimization concept is the way for us to develop them to be more engage in work. We must be able to determine the right number of people at the right time or look at the quality. That will have a lot to do with how we deliver better and faster results to our customer and in order to optimize the workforce in the company, we must consider the perspective from the employee’s side while trying to achieve what our contact center is. 

For example, a receptionist. Some people’s perspective of a receptionist is they job is just to answer the call, no one saw them that they were here for company business purposes. We don’t see them as a fancy calculation mechanism. We treat them well. They are here not to just answering the call, but they are here doing business and have taken a very remarkable journey. 

Aryan’s opinion of that strategy is sometimes we need to look at it from a third perspective view because we need to look at what matters to the center at that moment. Are we looking at cutting down costs or are we trying to increase our service because it depends on the stage of the organization? We may have to take one of those steps.

Workforce optimization integrates technology into a single point of management to increase the visibility of customer interactions, employee performance, and business processes. By analyzing all customer interactions, businesses can leverage insights to train their employees and streamline workflows to improve the overall quality of customer service.

Sunil Aryan also gives a summary and his opinion about today’s discussion. He said that the world is changing, and of course, vendors will try to bring something which will make your life easier. They are those who know your business better than you. The first point is you must realize that what is it that I want to achieve. The questions like, what is target to buy or target to fix a problem, please do not consider that solution.

None of these solutions work without a comprehensive. Sunil said that do the consultative approach with the person who needs to do it. That person who took a step forward to think of which solution needs to fix the problem.

The second point is, he thinks every one of us said that employees are the ones who give customer experience that they can be digital. Aryan said for example, all human beings always empower intelligent virtual assistants. Then, he asks a question to those bots. “Why is that answer different from what you are agent call center telling me or what is written on the website,” Sunil said. Then, don’t find these things in sight. He said that let’s have that as a unified platform. (ANF)

Leaders Talk: What Managers Should Do First Before Making a Strategy

September 24, 2021 – Contact Center Associations of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC) present Leaders Talk discussion with the theme “Workforce Optimization in Contact Center.” CC-APAC invited professional speakers to the Asia Pacific contact center.

One of the speakers is Andy Hardy, Strategic Director of Employee Engagement for Genesys in Australia, and New Zealand. Andy explained that optimizing the workforce in the contact center is very important at this time. Investment in employees is typically the most expensive cost to any organization and business. Therefore, it’s more appropriate not to replacing our employees with new ones because it will cost more. Then, it will help us manage employees easily and engage them to be more involved in the work. Because by keeping our current employees, we will get a better level of service.

The next discussion is talking about the strategy of optimizing the workforce in the contact center. Andy said that we need to use the information and insight that we have on our employees. He tried to get back the basics of service, such as what service to provide to customers. Then moving on to the employee experience, think about service providers. 

Andy also shares some tips for managers regarding the implementation of workforce optimization. He said that we must think bigger and higher when we are starting a strategy.  Think about our customers first and what service we are trying to give to our customers. Then, build our strategy off the back of that for our employees, align the two. “If they are going in two different directions, neither are going to be successful,” said Andy. He thinks that is an important thing to do.

About the workforce, there is a study that said. If we keep our employees within our business and keep them engaged, then we are going to see higher productivity. We can notice this claim of 17 to 20% higher productivity by engaged employees. If we have engaged employees, we are going to see much lower attrition then, our investment isn’t just about people, but it’s about our organization. Then, he thinks that the engagement thing is important. (ANF)

Leaders Talk: Placing a Right Person in the Right Place to Optimization Workforce

September 24, 2021 – In this Leaders Talk, the Contact Center Associations of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC) discussed “Workforce Optimization in Contact Center.” We invited three speakers who are professionals in the Asia Pacific contact center industry. 

One of the speakers is Mark Harington, Vice President Solutions, APAC at NICE Ltd. Mark said that the industry has now come to a better. He said that we need to engaged workforce. Because today’s workforce they don’t do receptionist anymore because they answer the questions so hard. Compare it to chatbots and any other websites that can’t answer some of the questions, the receptionist is still better. And that is why you need to keep them more engaged in work and make their life easier, faster, better, and engaged.

About workforce optimization strategy in contact center, Mark shared his perspective. He calls that strategy a thick layer on the boiled egg. The thick layers are what our company decides on how to talk to our customers. Every company decides differently because some companies want to keep their customers happy and want their customers to love them. Some companies just don’t care about their customers and do the basic stuff only.

Mark also shared a summary of today’s discussion. He said that the way to deal with the shifts and markets, as the old man said that make sure you have the right person in the right places. Customers have to meet the right people who can answer their questions. Make sure you are there to answer what they need to answer. And if you can get to them before they even come to you, then that is great. That is the simplest way to organize your workforce.

He said that you can choose another option. You can go through technology, but you have to think about which vendor has the right experience in your domain. Who can understands your organization much better, what is the amount of changes management you change to adapt the staff.  Then, all of these things are what allow you to have the right development. Spend more time asking about change management, what will happen in three months or six months, how have you done this before, what are the challenges in getting technology to another technology. (ANF)

Leaders Talk CC-APAC: How to Increase Workforce Optimization in Contact Center

Friday, September 24, 2021 – The fourth Leaders Talk organized by Contact Center Associations of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC) discussed “Workforce Optimization in Contact Center” by inviting three professional speakers to the Asia Pacific contact center.

This discussion was presented by Andi Anugrah, Chairman of ICCA Indonesia. The first panelist is Andy Hardy, Strategic Director of Employee Engagement for Genesys in Australia, and New Zealand. The second is Mark Harington, Vice President Solutions, APAC at NICE Ltd. The last one is Sunil Aryan, Director Practice Backoffice and Retail, Asia Verint. 

The first discussion is talked about optimizing the workforce in the current contact center. Andy said that optimizing the workforce in the contact center is very important at this time. Investment in employees is typically the most expensive cost to any organization and business. Therefore, it’s more appropriate not to replacing our employees with new ones because it will cost more. Then, it will help us manage employees easily and engage them to be more involved in the work. Because by keeping our current employees, we will get a better level of service.

Aryan also explained that optimization or workforce engagement management is evolving and has become very important, especially for the contact center. In optimizing the workforce in the company, we must consider the perspective from the employee’s side while trying to achieve what our contact center is. 

For example, a receptionist. Some people’s perspective of a receptionist is they job is just to answer the call. We don’t see them as a fancy calculation mechanism. We treat them well. They are here not just to answering the call, but they are here doing business and have taken a very remarkable journey. 

Because no one saw that they were here for company business purposes then, this optimization concept is the way for us to develop them more engagement if we see it as a good calculation mechanism. We must be able to determine the right number of people at the right time or look at the quality. That will have a lot to do with how we deliver better and faster results to our customers.

Mark has a different opinion from other speakers. Mark said that the industry has now come to a better. He thinks that we need to the engaged workforce. Nowadays they don’t seem like a receptionist because they answer the questions so hard. Compare it to chatbots and any other websites that can’t answer some of the questions, the receptionist is still better. And that is why you need to keep them involved and make their life easier, faster, better, and engaged.

The next discussion is talking about the strategy of optimizing the workforce in the contact center. Andy said that we need to use the information and insight that we have on our employees. He tried to get back the basics of service, such as what service to provide to customers. Then moving on to the employee experience, think about service providers. 

Then, we can start thinking about how we engage our employees and what technology we need to provide that service. If we can start to correlate those two things together, we can start to be very smart around. Also, think about how you start to build your strategy. He would start there and use the data and insights.

Mark also shared his perspective about that strategy. He calls that strategy is a thick layer on the boiled egg. The thick layers are what our company decides on how to talk to our customers. Every company decides differently because some companies want to keep their customers happy and want their customers to love them. Some companies just don’t care about their customers and do the basic stuff only.

Aryan’s opinion of that strategy is sometimes we need to look at it from a third perspective view because we need to look at what matters to the center at that moment. Are we looking at cutting down costs or are we trying to increase our service because it depends on the stage of the organization? We may have to take one of those steps.

Workforce optimization integrates technology into a single point of management to increase the visibility of customer interactions, employee performance, and business processes. By analyzing all customer interactions, businesses can leverage insights to train their employees and streamline workflows to improve the overall quality of customer service.

We also discussed the importance of collaboration in the application of technology. The important thing is having a partner in building a contact center. For this reason, users need to build engagement with vendors then they can get maximum results in the application of technology. Because all speakers in this discussion are vendors, they hope to build relationships with users, then they can maximize the functionality of the technology and provide benefits according to business goals.

At the end of the discussion, all panelists give their summary and tips about the implementation of workforce optimization in the contact center. Want to know more about their opinion? For details, stay tuned for another article on the CC-APAC website. (ANF)