Employee optimisation and customer management key to WFO

Sabio is encouraging contact centres to unlock Workforce Optimisation potential by investing in more sophisticated performance management and analytics activities New White Paper focuses on Employee Optimisation and Customer Management as the two distinct components of a successful, integrated Workforce Optimisation approach

Sabio, the specialist contact centre systems integrator, has released a new WhitePaper that encourages contact centres to unlock the true potential of their Workforce Optimisation projects by investing in more sophisticated performance management and analytics activities.

Available for free download at www.sabio.co.uk/white-paper-wfo.html, the White Paper outlines how the most successful WFO approaches now incorporate elements from two distinct Workforce Optimisation areas: Employee Optimisation and Customer Management elements. The paper also identifies the importance of a strong and ongoing two-way relationship between a contact centre's internal functional efficiency and the quality of the service that it delivers to customers.

Authored by Sabio's Head of Workforce Optimisation, Michael Andrews, the paper is titled "Evolving the traditional WFO model to properly address today's distinct challenges of effective contact centre Employee Optimisation and Customer Management". The new Sabio White Paper suggests that until organisations successfully start to externalise their customer services focus, they are probably never going to make the most of Workforce Optimisation value proposition.

"At Sabio we're convinced that it will be those organisations that successfully integrate the more sophisticated elements of Workforce Optimisation into their customer service operations who will be better positioned to take advantage of a sustained market recovery," commented Michael Andrews, Head of Workforce Optimisation at Sabio. "We're finding, for example, that with Customer Management approaches such as customer feedback, organisations can really start to know what it is that their customers care most about - and that can prove invaluable in building Marketing strategies to attract new customers.

"Similarly, those businesses using speech analytics can to tap into emerging customer behaviour trend, and quickly turn that insight into a competitive advantage by building real-time customer information into their current programmes," he continued. "While distinct Employee Optimisation and Customer Management activities can deliver their own benefits, contact centre operators can unlock significant further strategic advantage when these two Workforce Optimisation areas are brought together," continued Michael Andrews. "Successful WFO shouldn't be a one-way process, as the internal and external disciplines are likely to have a significant and ongoing impact on the other. To take full advantage of these opportunities, we would encourage contact centres to benchmark all their customer service activities - focusing particularly on more relevant customer-focused metrics such as Net Promoter Scores and real-time customer feedback that can help bring a qualitative aspect to optimisation.

"Sabio's White Paper also highlights ways that organisations can leverage Employee Optimisation efficiencies to fund Customer Management investment," added Michael. "Correctly staffed and scheduled contact centres with the right recruitment policies and training levels can always deliver an improved performance, so it makes sense to unlock some of the value released with techniques such as Workforce Management and Quality Monitoring to fund added value activities such as Speech Analytics that can identify processes that need strengthening and uncover new customer trends and opportunities."

Working with Sabio, organisations such as Addison Lee, Thames Water and HomeServe have all successfully secured significant savings through their WFM deployments. London's leading private hire firm, Addison Lee, for example has already unlocked savings of over £1 million. The company found that optimising the call centre forecasting and scheduling activities and reducing overtime costs has already enabled a 30 percent overall saving on annual staffing costs