Workforce management (WFM) is a multi-pronged solution to the challenges that most companies face when it comes to customer experience and support. It allows companies to make sure their workforce is fully optimized and efficient with tools that facilitate thorough analysis, frequent reviews, and consistent improvements. Even with incredible teams filled with motivated agents, there are still a lot of complex situations that arise when managing customer-facing teams. Workforce management helps to reduce or eliminate these challenges using innovative tools and strategic solutions.
- Forecast and simplify your scheduling
- Excel at time management
- Monitor team performance
- Promote agent success
- Encourage adoption of WFM tools
- How tymeshift is modernizing WFM
Forecast and simplify your scheduling
An incredibly helpful facet of WFM is Forecasting. This gives you the ability to take all of your past data and use it to predict future needs. The more data you have logged, the more detailed and accurate your Forecast will become. That way, you know how many agents should be scheduled at a given time based on real data instead of just guesswork.
Whether it's a team with just a few agents or hundreds, scheduling is a complicated task that many managers typically dread (that is until they use tymeshift). Working with multiple calendars, personal preferences, and unanticipated situations make scheduling via traditional methods like spreadsheets or printouts difficult.
WFM solutions provide the necessary tools for creating agents' schedules. By using a WFM solution, managers can develop accurate and detailed plans for their workforce, even making intraday schedules. This helps teams to not only know who is working when but also what they should be doing at any given time, such as answering calls or switching to tickets. A good WFM solution reduces the guesswork an agent is expected to do and allows them to focus on helping customers – which really should always be at the forefront of their minds anyway!
In addition to creating more precise schedules, WFM gives teams insight into how they are performing. Many times, agents and managers have to guess about client satisfaction or ticket solves based on limited data. With WFM, they can clearly see what's getting done and where there are gaps.
By understanding their team's performance in real-time, managers can set realistic goals and resolve problems before it's too late. WFM also gives managers insight into how each agent is doing when it comes to specific tasks. This can provide them with the details they need to coach agents to improve. It also allows them to see which agents are excelling in certain areas so that they can be mentors or create help guides for the rest of the team.
In our opinion, this is one of the most important aspects of WFM. With everything we create and build at tymeshift, it's at the forefront of our minds. We're always asking ourselves, "How can we make this feature better for agents?"
WFM isn't just about easily setting up schedules and getting reporting metrics. It's about creating an environment where agents can learn and grow in their careers. Identifying coaching opportunities is one benefit of WFM. Another that is often surprising to managers is the fact that WFM gives them insight into tasks their agents are doing in addition to their mandatory work. Things like improving the customer help center, working on the FAQ, or answering social media questions might be overlooked without WFM. However, these tasks are essential to the success of your brand, and agents who go that extra mile to handle these tasks shouldn't be overlooked.
Another crucial aspect of a good WFM solution is that it will promote a positive work/life balance for the team. Agents should be able to request time off easily, pick up unassigned shifts, and even trade shifts without endless emails and waiting for approvals. WFM can automate these processes, giving agents autonomy as the manager sees fit and allowing for approvals or rejections to happen quickly through one system.
Encourage adoption of WFM tools
Overall, WFM creates clarity and transparency that teams need to provide the best possible support for customers. This won't happen overnight, and it does take a bit of a culture shift to incorporate these new tools and methods. It's a good idea to explain what a WFM is (or encourage members to sign up for one of our WFM webinars) to help everyone understand why it's so important. Selecting some agents as champions for WFM and encouraging them to spread the word, test the tools, and let their managers know what they think and what else they need will help make the adoption process go more smoothly.
How tymeshift is modernizing WFM
Customers have high expectations for the brands they engage with every day. They expect helpful, kind, and comprehensive support on-demand. These expectations require teams of knowledgeable and organized agents who can tailor the support they give to match each customer's needs. tymeshift is always working to create new ways to make agents' jobs easier. The less time they have to spend filling out needless spreadsheets or hunting for which task they're supposed to work on next, the more time agents get to spend excelling at their jobs.
tymeshift gives businesses the digital tools they need to tackle a wide range of customer support challenges. By providing scheduling, real-time reporting, metrics, forecasting, and more, tymeshift allows companies to seamlessly engage with a comprehensive WFM solution so they can focus on providing the best support possible.
Now it's your turn to try out WFM!