Workforce Management:
The Agent Self Service Revolution
(Part Two in a Two Part Series)
By Daryl Gonos
Sr. Partner & Co-founder
Hosted service solution
eResourcePlanner™, provides the
most robust agent self service capabilities via low risk,
rapid adoption, hosted service. This service integrates
readily to most workforce management platforms and, unlike
alternative solutions, does not require additional hardware.
This service, available through The Workforce Management
Group, provides the rich capabilities described above
as well as robust reporting and audit trails of each agent's
transaction history.
eResourcePlanner was first to recognize
not only the many positive impacts of agent empowerment
but was also first to create the most robust set of tools
for reporting and thus managing shrinkage. If you have
a solution and do not want to invest in additional hardware
and software to get agent self service, eResourcePlanner
is a great option.
Optional agent empowerment modules
If you already have a workforce management
platform and you are not opposed to adding more hardware
and software license fees Aspect™ offers Empower™
and IEX™ delivers Webstation. These two dominant
providers each have well developed agent self service
capabilities. Pipkin's the makers of Vantage Point™
developed WAVE (Web Agent & Empowerment) for agent
self service and it is a very nice tool. Any portion of
the agent self service capabilities available from your
provider are worth securing. Agent self service is as
valuable as Real-time adherence and is not nearly as expensive
or technical in its deployment.
Deployment
You will need to make some decisions
about how you are going to deploy agent self service.
Hosted service or optional module add-ons present varying
scenarios and require some scrutiny. Your information
technology group may not want internet access to your
servers for security purposes. There are options here
so do not just say no way. All agents may not have internet
access from home. An answer to this issue lies in a kiosk
approach. Scatter PC's throughout the center that are
designated for agent self service. Since every agent has
a designated login and password, it is an easy solution.
Policies and procedures, as stated
previously, must be very clearly understood prior to the
deployment of agent self service functions. Consensus
has to be reached especially when it comes to an automatic
approval process. You may just want an agent to speak
with their supervisor in order to go out sick.
A pilot of a subset of the call center
makes sense when deploying agent self service. This will
enable you to get a sense for how the agents respond to
the tool and will allow you to work out any kinks in the
automated processes.
The future is here: Agent Self Monitoring
The agent self service model provides
an insight into the future. It is not a big leap to go
from agent self servicing to agent self monitoring and
management. That is to say, let's give the agent the metrics
on their performance during the day and allow them to
self manage their behavior to meet performance objectives.
The mechanism is there to communicate with the agent so
they can see, as an example, how well they are performing
next to their peers, what their average handling time
is or what was their quality monitoring performance or
how well they are adhering to their schedules.
Additionally, TotalView, like Aspect's
Notification Server, sends reminders of upcoming scheduled
activities to enable even greater adherence to the schedule.
Webstation is a powerful tool that is making a huge impact
on not only the agents but the centers performance and
most importantly on those centers customers.
The point here is that by informing
the agent of their performance throughout the day, via
the web browser, they can take action now to keep from
being counseled later. This encourages and further increases
agent productivity, while reducing counseling.
Workforce management software has had
to evolve very quickly to stay abreast of peripheral technologies
that impact workforce management strategies, like skills
based routing and multi-media transaction processing.
It was the web though that has brought us the most significant
enhancement to workforce management technology in the
last decade, agent self service.
Its impact puts a new face on workforce
management technology and agents, analysts and contact
centers are getting caught up in the revolutionary new
capabilities offered by a host of providers.
See these providers for products and
services related to agent self service:
