5 Methods to Reduce Costs with Workforce Management

March 8, 2022

It’s the beginning of the busy season for your contact center and customer demand has skyrocketed.

You expected to jump into this turbulent season but the timing has always been difficult to predict. Even more problematic is the task of accurately forecasting staff for your booming customer needs. As much as you have tried to prepare for this shift, it still feels pretty chaotic. Communicating with agents to cover last-minute schedule changes is a constant concern, and visibility into whether your agents are truly adhering to the defined schedule is a definite challenge.

These are the issues Workforce Management (WFM) is designed to solve. With accurate forecasting, scheduling tools, agent portals, and real-time adherence insights, you have the technology you need to staff your contact center—for the benefit of customers and agents.

In the past, only large contact centers with hundreds of agents tended to invest in WFM due to the high installation, training and maintenance costs associated with legacy solutions. With the rise of easy-to-use, cloud-based solutions, even the smallest of contact centers have discovered the incredible benefits of WFM.

When shopping for a WFM solution, buyers need to consider both cost and return on investment (ROI). Below are just a few of the areas where WFM users typically see savings.

Workforce Management Reduces Costs in Your Contact Center

1. Reduce Sickness

When staffing levels don’t accurately match demand (e.g. are too low during busy periods or too high during quiet periods) this can lead to stress, boredom, low morale and potential sickness for agents. By improving forecasting and scheduling, contact centers can improve their agent experience and reduce sickness by around 1%.

2. Lower Attrition Rate

When agents are able to perform the tasks they are trained for, achieve their targets and objectives, see their schedules, and have some control over their working hours (e.g. swapping shifts and booking vacations) they are more likely to stay with your contact center beyond a year. As a result, WFM users typically see attrition rates fall by a minimum of 10%, saving them thousands in recruitment and training costs.

3. Mitigate Overtime Costs

Contact centers can maximize the flexibility of staffing hours to reduce overtime costs significantly when using WFM technology. With a low to medium change, a minimum saving of 10% can be achieved.

4. Predict Staffing Needs

With a WFM solution, contact centers can more accurately predict the resources needed for each 15-minute interval, bringing staffing levels closer to what is truly required. Contact centers can expect a minimum saving of 5%.

5. Monitor Adherence

Adherence has a huge impact on contact center performance. For example, if a 10-minute unscheduled break is taken or an agent is pulled away from their schedule, the impact over the year can be costly. Ten minutes per day lost over the year could translate to losing around 35 hours of work time per agent per year.

Simplify Staff Management with Workforce Management

As a cloud-based software solution, DVSAnalytics Workforce Management delivers easy-to-use tools for expert staff management while lowering your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Its all-inclusive licensing eliminates hidden costs, allowing your team to take full advantage of the tool. Managed services, included with the software, removes the burden of administration from your busy IT staff.

Download the Buyer’s Guide to Workforce Management to see important points to consider when shopping for a Workforce Management solution.

Leverage your workforce talent, control costs, and reduce agent attrition with DVSAnalytics Workforce Management in the cloud. Contact us today to see how DVSAnalytics’ WFM solution can deliver tangible benefits with cost-savings for your contact center.