For many readers, the process of getting historical data from your automatic call distribution (ACD) reporting platform into your workforce management (WFM) system will be a mystery. Here’s a bit of a catch up before we get to the good stuff...

One great thing about my current role, working with The Forum, is we get out and meet contact centres across the UK, Ireland and beyond. Often we facilitate workshops regarding how resource planning is performed with contact centres. And the one question I love to start with is ‘Who has responsibility for resource planning in this contact centre?’

Achieving service levels consistently is one of the most important deliverables for a contact center. Whether your center is focused on sales, customers service, or technical support, the ability of your customers to have reliable access is what keeps your business growing. Service levels are often measured monthly, but...

Scheduling is one of the most challenging functions in a contact center. Not only can it be technically challenging (depending on the type of workforce management technology you have), but there are a lot of opinions as to what makes schedules “correct”.  The key is to get input from employees and customers and strike the balance appropriate for your business... 

Forecasting is where it all starts. Everything that happens in a contact center related to service levels, occupancy, ASA, and abandon rates can be traced back to how accurate or actionable a forecast was. There are a lot of views on how to best measure forecasting accuracy.