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We talk a lot about outcomes. A focus on outcomes tends to intensify as things trend very good or very bad. We like to think leadership, culture, economy, and decision-making as the primary drivers of outcomes and results. Rarely do we equate process with results for some reason. Process isn’t action; it’s glacial. Process isn’t fun, or intuitive, or on a whim. Papers get processed. Requests get processed. We take time to process things. Process is waiting. And yet, process is trying to consistently take all the best information you can and consistently make good decisions.
The truth is, when we have to show our work, turn in our TPS reports, or pull months of data in order to examine the analytics, we often balk. The long, arduous, painful and transparent nature of the process opens us up to intense criticism and scrutiny.
It’s not entirely our fault. Sure, we’ve created a culture of shortcuts, wikis, apps, and the like that remove us from the process almost entirely. If we weren’t so inefficient in the first place, we might not fear the chance to understand and master the components or measuring in public. Process can cross-train. Principles in that underlay the processes are often applicable to most other processes, even if they inhabit different industries. A project manager for websites applies the same processes as a construction project manager. The process of collecting the dots in order to connect them is how we can create new efficiencies in places we never thought of before.
But the process takes time. It’s a process, after all. We don’t have the time. Or at least we don’t like to think we do. Small shortfalls make a big difference; so, narrowing some of those gaps should have significant effect as well.
What happens when a golden agent starts tracking her calls, her downtime spent, and her results get just a little better? Her day isn’t longer; but her production time is. What happens when a not-so-golden agent does it? The result: dramatic improvements.
A workplace environment that empowers your agents and their supervisors by applying the sophisticated features of WFO can provide unique insights. Slight adjustments to agents and teams that might have gone unnoticed otherwise can dramatically impact the service level. And the beauty is its scalability.
For this to work on any scale, visibility and transparency into goals and performance is critical. Set goals, measure performance, and adjust based on the data; and now you’ve improved the process almost instantly. Supervisors and agents can maximize their contributions by utilizing historical data on service level, occupancy rate and other metrics and weighing them by sophisticated algorithms to increase or decrease occupancy rate as needed; perpetuating an ongoing improvement process.
Within WFM, supervisors can perform analyses with drill down and roll up capabilities in user customizable views of key business information including staff shrinkage, agent productivity, intraday performance data, and superstate analysis. This helps ensure that agents are empowered, supported, and have the right amount of time in the day to do what they need to. By providing agents maximum flexibility and the building blocks for understanding, the results are outstanding. your workforce learns the principles, they can work with them and then learn to work them with remarkable efficiency.
Can a best-of-breed workforce management solution help you improve your processes, provide better outcomes and impact your operational savings? Check out our Enterprise Workforce Optimization Benefits Calculator to find out.
