Contact Center Management
Short-Term Forecasting & Scheduling
Do You Have a Short-Term Game Plan?
Ensuring scheduling efficiencies while carefully considering the needs of associates is a difficult balancing act even for a sophisticated Workforce Management team.
When executed correctly, effective workforce staffing practices can have a long-term impact on a company’s competitiveness and sustainability.
Flexibility in staffing is crucial to ensure the right number of associates are available to handle customer contacts every half hour of the day, but it is also important to offer associates a consistent schedule. It’s essential to meet associate needs but not be too tight on the number of people scheduled.
Our Approach
The Northridge Group can help you ensure the right people are in the right place at the right time.
Every Contact Center needs a short-term game plan to operate efficiently. Short-term forecasting and scheduling should focus on daily and half-hourly staffing requirements to ensure the right number of associates are scheduled on any given day and hour to handle incoming contact volumes. It’s essential to plan for absenteeism, meeting and training requirements, offline time, and coaching sessions.
We can help you develop a monthly forecasting cadence that allows you to identify trends quickly and consistently and proactively adjust your hiring and scheduling plans to reflect current insights while developing an operational game plan to minimize risks. Short-term forecasting is essential for ensuring that the right people are in the right place at the right time. Creative scheduling can help balance customer needs with those of employees while improving employee engagement.
Our Solutions
The Northridge Group offers a broad spectrum of solutions that help Contact Centers optimize their forecasting and scheduling. Our services include:
Assessments
Creative scheduling ideas to improve employee engagement
Attainment of service level targets
Balancing efficiency with employee development goals
Design and implementation support for short-term forecasting and scheduling disciplines – including half-hourly optimization and improved accuracy
Northridge Success
Northridge Helps Large Credit Union Mitigate Risks and Reduce Costs with Data-Driven Workforce Management Models
Northridge was engaged by one of the nation’s largest credit unions to assess their current state customer service staffing and growth strategies to enable them to base future planning decisions on industry best practices. Northridge recommendations leveraged data-driven workforce management planning to mitigate performance risks and reduce the costs associated with contact center understaffing.
Northridge Perspectives
People, Process & Technology and the Intersection of AI: Part 3
In Part 3: Leslie O’Flahaven talks about how AI will impact how agents communicate with customers and the impact it will have on CX scores.
People, Process & Technology and the Intersection of AI: Part 2
People, Process & Technology – and the Intersection of AI: Part 2
People, Process & Technology and the Intersection of AI: Part 1
People, Process & Technology – and the Intersection of AI: Part 1
Additional Contact Center Management Services
Let’s Talk About Your Organization
It takes strong analytical expertise and some creativity to develop schedules and coverage that meet the needs of the business, customers and associates. Northridge can help!