Monday December 17 12:49 PM EST

New App Aims To Optimize Contact Center Scheduling

By Erika Morphy, www.CRMDaily.com

Expert Solutions International, a division of Israel's Formula Group (NYSE: FORTY - news), has unveiled an enhanced version of its OptiWise workforce management and optimization software. This new version supports contact centers and field service departments -- both of which are becoming increasingly essential for customer care initiatives, the company said.

"A comprehensive service workforce planning and management, in both contact center and field service departments, is the key to adequate customer service and improved efficiency and productivity of the entire service delivery chain," ESI scheduling division manager Zion Harel said. With this release, ESI marries two separate and growing trends in the CRM industry -- advancement of field service automation and a new realization that workforce optimization scheduling can reduce costs and increase performance significantly in contact centers. In particular, this sort of application has become popular with cellular and long-distance service providers, TV and cable network operators, airlines, utilities and, to a certain extent, financial institutions, ESI said.

Functionality
The enhanced version of OptiWise forecasts workloads in contact center and field service departments, and it automatically plans and schedules the staff needed per shift, according to Expert Solutions. The system uses historical data to produce these schedules, using such criteria as employee skills, company structure, customer types and maximum number of shifts.

An optimal scheduling algorithm rates employees' product knowledge, then compares their schedules to prevent a lack of specific skills in the contact center. The enhanced version also analyzes the effect of contact center load and scheduling changes on field service operations -- and vice versa -- by synchronizing information across contact center and field service departments.

Finally, this application monitors contact center and field service operations in real-time, comparing actual versus planned performance. It also monitors costs related to the desired service-level category.

Not a Morning Person
Workforce optimization in particular is becoming very popular among larger contact centers, Meta Group analyst Elizabeth Ussher told CRMDaily.com.

"Some companies are even using applications to rate individual agents on when they work most efficiently during the day," Ussher said. "Some people are morning folks and so they can be assigned more complex tasks then. Other people hit their stride in the afternoon; more and more, this sort of individual data and observations are being quantified and used when scheduling agents."