Recruiting and retaining agents is, unsurprisingly, one of the biggest challenges contact center leaders face while running their operations. Standard turnover rates sit between 30 and 45% and can cost your company up to three times an employee’s annual salary. Yikes!

Turns out, only one in three customer service agents are engaged in their work. And, those disengaged agents are 84% more likely to look for a new job. But investing in the right contact center workforce management (WFM) software can help you prioritize your agent experience while remaining laser-focused on your customer experience.

How Contact Center Workforce Management Improves Your Agent Performance

With WFM tools, you can improve agent productivity and reduce staff-related costs by 10-20% along the way.

Here’s how.

Optimize Scheduling to Decrease Agent Burnout

As many as 74% of call center agents are at risk of burnout. And burnout contributes to high turnover rates and absenteeism. Being the front line for a brand is draining work, and agents are often underappreciated in the workplace. Their days are tedious, the work is repetitive, and the workload can be overwhelming. Plus, they deal with often disgruntled — and sometimes difficult — customers.

Optimized scheduling that plans for proper breaks reduces stress. WFM tools can help you create accurate schedules to address peak traffic. You can also see what channels need the most support and where to optimize agent strengths.

Improved scheduling doesn’t just impact agent performance. It also protects agents from burnout and leads to a better customer experience. Agents facing burnout are grumpier and less engaged — a recipe for bad CX. With appropriate scheduling and staffing, customers interact with an energized team and get help faster.

Reduce Post-Call Work to Improve Productivity

Customers want productive, effective service. By improving agent productivity, you enhance the customer experience. And a better customer experience can boost revenue by 84% and reduce costs by 79%. One way to support productivity is by cutting down the time spent on admin-related tasks. Busy work takes away from the time agents spend with customers — which is what their job is all about.

Contact center workforce management can help automate admin-related tasks. With the right tool, you can reduce the post-call work agents do, like logging customer information and reporting issues. WFM eliminates the busy work so agents can focus on providing a better experience.

Use Performance Analytics and Feedback to Engage Agents

According to Gallup, employees need purpose and development to remain engaged. Employees want to grow. Would you stick around if you weren’t expanding your knowledge or skills? Consistent performance management improves the likelihood that your agents will stay. Plus, it supports better service quality.

Performance analytics help keep your agents engaged by adding consistent coaching and training into their workflow. With the right tools, you can track key metrics that help you tag where agents need support or extra training. This keeps employees invested in their growth and success while improving overall service.

Implement Skills-Based Routing to Maximize Agent Strengths

When your agents use their strengths, they’re more engaged at work. In fact, Gallup found employees who use their strengths every day are six times more likely to be engaged on the job than those who don’t. So, what does that mean for your contact center? The more engaged your agents are, the stronger their performance. What’s more, engaged agents are less likely to leave your company and they bring in more revenue to boost your bottom line.

By adding skills-based routing, you’re leaning on your agents to use their specific knowledge set to help customers. For instance, let’s say your agent, David, is amazing with reporting and analytics. When a customer calls in requesting help with an archived report, your contact center workforce management knows David is the best agent to help. And automatically, the interaction is routed to David. This makes for a more efficient, effective interaction for the customer, David, and all the agents who didn’t have to touch it.

Interested in learning how Broadvoice can improve your agent performance and CX? Connect with one of our consultants for more information.

3 (More) Ways Contact Center WFM Boosts Your Customer Satisfaction

1. Improved Morale Leads to Better Service

In a recent IDC survey, 85% of business leaders noted that improved employee experiences and higher employee engagement lead to a better customer experience, improved customer satisfaction, and higher revenue. When your employees are happy and engaged in their roles, your customers notice the difference.

By accounting for agent preferences and skills, WFM improves your performance management. This leads to happier agents. And happier agents mean your customers interact with employees who are empowered to do their jobs well. Sounds like a good service experience to me!

2. Sufficient Staffing Leads to a Better Customer Experience

Contact center workforce management ensures you’re sufficiently staffed. With the right number of agents available, you’re more likely to deliver an efficient customer experience by reducing hold times and offering faster resolutions. With WFM, you can provide personalized and effective solutions with every interaction.

3. A Culture of Continuous Improvement Leads to Better CSAT

With WFM, your team can continuously improve. As a result, you’re constantly boosting your customer’s experience with your brand and your service team.

Track performance metrics to look for areas of development. Offer more agents targeted coaching and training. This helps agents address customer needs faster with more accuracy. Then, you can optimize processes to improve FCR and drive a better CSAT.

Ready to see how workforce management can work for your contact center? Schedule a demo.