Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.

 

Samuel Coleridge understood that we can be surrounded by an abundance of something and yet helpless to gain anything from it, as he laments in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.  Being in a ship surrounded by water can still make one thirsty. Similarly, what good is all the data in the world if it cannot be accessed and used to help?  If your workforce management system is not set up to collect specific forms of data, that system might just be an albatross around your supervisor’s neck.

Pipkins’ now makes available an AI behavioral analysis algorithm that can better help you identify if your agent needs coaching and in what area specifically.  We call this a projected provided profile of your agent or even the whole team.   The schedule gives work force planner the ideal view of who should do what and when.  The projected provided adds the human factors that resemble more the reality of what to expect given that Becky takes longer lunches on Wednesdays, or that Clare takes several bathroom breaks in general and Joanne has a tendency to leave early.  This profiling, of course, is only possible by collecting the right data over time.

Any WFM system can take ACD data and make a fair forecast off based on collected historical data, adherence, and seasonality, for example. The majority of this data is client driven.  But the projected provided profile goes even farther as it incorporates agent behavior. Every day the projected provided profile system is monitoring your agents, all day, every day — agent-driven data.  Thus, the agent-driven data along with the client-driven data makes an incredibly clear forecast as to how your day is going to turn out.

You have already planned for most adherence problems you are expecting. The unexpected absence can also be dealt with easily.  Schedules can be traded in a timely manner minimizing the impact.  Agents can be quickly notified of available shift changes that the agents can respond to so the schedulers can transfer that information directly into eSmart.  If approved by the agent, that requested change is applied.  In addition, there is an automation feature that allows the system to process a change request by an agent against criteria that must be satisfied for the system to perform the change.  Smooth sailing . . .