1. Workforce Management For Contact Centres Of All Sizes
If you have plans of putting up your own contact centre, you will need to know of some tips from people who have been
in the business as they have some very important lessons to share. You may think all you need are some phones, some
computers, several agents, and a connection to the internet but this is not the case at all. You may be able to afford to
slack off if you have an agent or two aboard but as your business grows, you will need to learn all about workforce
management. After all, your phones and your computers may cost you a lot of money but it is your agents that make
up the bulk of your workforce and they also happen to be the most important component of your contact centre. You
can train them all you want and give them the best spiels but without an effective workforce management plan, you
will lose money because of your agents. As far as increasing productivity goes, workforce management (WFM)
solutions really do a lot for the agents, the business, and the customers. These workforce management solutions really
go a long way towards cutting down on agent inefficiency, minimizing their idle time, and cutting back on
absenteeism. Remember, you pay your agents by the hour so you want to make sure that every minute they are on the
clock is time well-spent.
Aside from helping you get the most out of your agents, WFM solutions can also help you improve customer
experience as it can help you improve agent availability and thus do away with the need for customer call backs which
can really do a number on your satisfaction ratings. Indeed, these workforce management tools can help you increase
your income and it can also help you decrease the amount of money you are spending. This is a big secret in the
contact centre industry because you may have to spend a bit of extra money on your WFM tools but you do get returns
in your investment very quickly. Plus, you also have peace of mind since you know you have software that can help you
run things more smoothly as the more tedious aspects of running a contact centre may be done automatically by the
software. With the right WFM tool, you can monitor the calls your agents are handling so you can check if they adhere
to your standards. Scheduling your employees will no longer be a problem since your WMF tools will gather data and
schedule more agents to work when there is a rush and schedule less agents to work during slow hours. You can even
find some WFM tools that will gather data for the centre based on the calls and let you know the areas you can improve
on so operations become smoother and more streamlined. As a contact centre owner, this is really all you can ask for
because once your operations become more streamlined, you can bet your customers will keep coming back for more
and this is how you make money. Aside from the WFM tools, you may also get what is known as the IVR. This IVR, or
Interactive Voice Response, has been around for ages and doesn't really have the best reputation. When IVR
solutions first came out, they were clunky and rather slow which is why people never really took a liking to them, they

2. preferred to talk to real people about their issues. However, with the new IVR technology available today, people are
finding that they actually do like IVR and contact centre owners like how the IVR can help them save money by
handling routine questions and issues that are quite easy to fix. This way, the agents are free to take calls that really
need their attention.
If you want to look for the best IVR and WFM solutions, you may want to go online and contact several vendors so
they can visit you and give you a demo. As you are looking online, be sure to have a look at http://www.sabio.co.uk.
This is a company that can really help you land the best WFM tools and the best IVR for your contact centre business
no matter how big or small.