One of the most critical steps in making and receiving customer calls is deciding not just how many staff are required, but what type of staffing solution your business will utilize. Since about three-fourths of call center costs are related to labor costs, the decision is fundamental to the operation of your business.

No call center is perfect when it comes to forecasting and scheduling. Even with advanced technology, statistics, and Workforce Management software there are too many uncertainties that impact the call center on an interval level. The goal of any forecaster or planner is to strive to be as accurate as possible in their forecast of requirements and scheduling their associates. Carelessness in doing so can result in heavy costs for the company. Although it may seem obvious how understaffing can negatively affect the call center, there’s a high cost in overstaffing as well.

Contact center staffing, commonly referred to as Workforce Management, is one of the most critical functions of planning and managing a call center. Since the majority of costs associated with the call center are attributable to personnel, it is imperative to get just the right number of staff in place. Overstaffing results in spending needless dollars, while understaffing results in poor service, over worked staff, and the risk of lost revenues.

Everyone agrees that training is vital in enabling your agents to achieve their full potential. But what is the best medium for delivering that training? The ideal scenario is to have high quality at a low cost - but is that possible?

We’re happy to announce even more updates to the Quality Assurance program. The new “Making the Most of Quality Monitoring” course will be released on December 15.

The new and improved “Basics of Coaching” course will be available on Learn, on September 16.

We’re happy to announce even more updates to the Quality Assurance program. The updated “Voice of the Customer” course will be released on November 11.

Fifth Gear develops and delivers solutions for order fulfillment, customer care, product personalization and ecommerce technology to create seamless direct-to-consumer experiences. The company is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Xerox is the world’s largest enterprise for business process and document management. Xerox is present in more than 180 countries, has more than 140,000 employees worldwide and annual revenue of over $21 billion, more than 50% of which is from Services such as customer care.

The new and improved “Basics of Coaching” course will be available on Learn, on October 28.