Contact center management can be one of the most daunting tasks within any organization. The contact center is often the division of the company that can be the most expensive without a clear path for revenue generation – unless the contact center is solely focused on sales. Either way, the contact center is often the most scrutinized of all company divisions and therefore tools to assist in the overall contact center management can lend significant value.

An overwhelming majority of the cost associated with the contact center is associated with staffing, which makes employee optimization critical. It can be challenging to ensure the right number of agents per shift to handle the anticipated number of calls, respond to e-mails and handle all web contacts. The first step is to properly forecast for a specific time period and while this can be done manually, workforce management solutions can streamline the process and ensure greater accuracy.

Contact center management can require a variety of call center management tools to help ensure the contact center is ready for any and all call periods and helps to eliminate over- and under-staffing within the center. As having too many on staff is a waste of resources, too few individuals to handle higher contact volumes can lower overall morale and contribute to employee churn.

Contact center technology solutions help contact center management to derive statistics from the ACD and other technologies to determine best forecasting numbers and right-fit employee schedules. Keep in mind that scheduling involves much more than the number of trained agents available for a specific shift. You must also schedule for breaks, training, requested vacation time or days off, sick days and any other unexpected absences that could arise.

Interestingly, while workforce management solutions help you to forecast for anticipated call volume within the contact center, there are additional capabilities you can gain. For instance, robust workforce management solutions will capture information produced by other applications and plug that information in to optimize your contact center management.

This information can include call volume, contact handle times, individual and team productivity, individual skill sets, real-time performance metrics and anticipated goals. All of this information can be used within the workforce management solution to drive effective contact center management. What is truly exciting about such solutions is how they can be used to keep customers, agents and contact center management happy.

Customers are happy when contact center management solutions ensure they have a satisfactory experience when interacting with the agent or any customer channel. When solutions are selected according to what will drive customer satisfaction, contact center management can be sure customers will be happy.

Agents are happy when contact center management recognizes the challenges they have in completing their jobs, respects their requests for days off and breaks and acknowledges strong performance through awards. The right workforce management solution enables contact center management to not only be aware of agent needs, but to make them a priority when it comes to managing the overall performance of the center.

Finally, contact center management is happy when all goals are met. This is not an easy task as goals can be both interdependent and dependent, presenting new challenges and opportunities for supervisors and decision makers. With the right tools in place, however, contact center management can drive optimal performance to achieve performance metrics and make customers happy.