At a Glance
Automatically blend agents to deal with inbound spikes
Balance all workloads, across all contact channels
Make best possible use of agent/ supervisor time
What is Dynamic Workforce Management?
Dynamic Workforce Management (WFM) is the automatic management of all agents and workloads to optimise performance across all contact channels in real-time during the working day.
Within Softdial Contact Center™ (SCC), this intraday workforce management is known as Sytel Real-Time Automation (SRA), which:
- reassigns agents automatically, even from outbound work, to where they are most needed during a shift, with no need for supervisor intervention
- balances service levels automatically across all inbound queues, even with agent shortages, call spikes, etc.
- assigns inbound contact sessions automatically according to queue service levels and agent skills/capacity.
To see SRA in action, watch these simulation videos >>
Within SRA, the engine that manages this workload balancing in real-time is the Automatic Session Distributor (ASD®).
What is The Automatic Session Distributor (ASD®)?
The ASD® is the multi-channel replacement for the traditional call center ACD.
The ASD automatically assigns contact sessions to agents with the most appropriate skillsets, or even previous interaction with the customer, and capacity within their personal workload to handle them.
For details on how workload balancing is achieved, see How SRA Makes Decisions >>
But doesn’t our WFM already do this?
Workforce Management (WFM) tools are very necessary in planning workloads and agent schedules day by day, but these tools simply cannot manage fluctuations in supply and demand on the day.
They may be able to assist with and advise on intraday agent and queue management but they still require manual intervention, either to take the required action or to monitor automatic actions that have been triggered. SRA does not.
SRA allows agents to come and go as scheduled, taking all fluctuations of supply and demand in its stride.
Revolutionize Your Contact Center Performance
SRA allows you to:
reduce the time any customer has to wait in a queue by automatically moving agents where possible to handle increased demand
minimise agent idle time automatically, with the scope for productivity improvements of 20% or more
balance any and all service level targets/SLAs automatically across all queues, protecting organisational reputation and keeping customers happy by not keeping them waiting
make the best use of supervisor time and skills. The supervisor simply ensures that the system knows what skills agents have, sets appropriate service levels per queue, and can focus on getting the best from their agents, not the technology
make ‘best-match’ decisions far more efficiently and accurately than any supervisor, so human error is minimised if not eliminated altogether
rethink your legacy WFM systems. SRA provides workforce planning outputs that allow you to plan staffing, but will also manage the media landscape in real time to ensure 100% occupancy, regardless of peaks and troughs in call, chat and email volumes
be more agile and flexible, adding channels and workflows without worrying about detrimental effects to existing work
To assess the impact of SRA in your own contact center, see The Business Case for SRA >>
Omnichannel Agent Blending
SRA automatically moves agents to cope with any spikes in inbound demand on any media channel, while minimising the impact on other workloads.
But wouldn’t taking agents off an outbound voice campaign cause a spike in abandoned calls?
No, because SCC’s dialing algorithm takes account of all campaign conditions including agent numbers. It automatically and instantaneously adjusts the dialing rate accordingly, so that outbound predictive dialing performance is not compromised.
During slack periods of inbound activity, agents can be kept busy with less time-critical work, e.g. email. At peak times, they can be moved up the value chain in response to demand, and back again when demand allows.
From Call Blending to Channel Blending
Back when ‘contact centers’ were ‘call centers’, and agents handled one voice call at a time, this balance was maintained by automated call blending – having agents do outbound work, moving them over to inbound when demand spiked, and moving them back again when demand decreased.
With the rise in expectation for contact across all media channels – voice, email, chat, social, etc – the software challenge is much more complex. The software must now balance across different media channels with very different performance measurement points.
This means, for example:
- bringing in chat agents to handle voice sessions during peak periods
- trade-offs between voice and chat SLAs
- balancing multiple queues across many different projects
- multi-disciplinary agents with different skills across lots of workloads
- some agents will be better than others at handling multiple sessions.
Explore more of SCC’s capabilities:
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