In today’s fast-paced world, contact centers managers have the difficult task of balancing operational efficiency while meeting customer expectations. One way to alleviate the burden of traditionally time-consuming and manual tasks of making sure the right agents are available at the right times to address customers’ needs is to use automation and artificial intelligence (AI) technology to improve workforce forecasting and scheduling operations.

In this article, we’ll look at the benefits of using AI-powered forecasting and scheduling to improve contact center efficiency, boost employee engagement and enhance the end-to-end customer experience.

Benefits of Continuous Workforce Management Forecasting and Schedule Flexibility

To improve contact center efficiency and workforce productivity, companies are looking to continuous forecasting and schedule flexibility. Here are some main benefits you can expect — and how using AI-powered forecasting tools can further amplify those benefits and create accurate workforce forecasting results.

Meet customer demands: Continuous forecasting is a technique that studies historical data to predict future customer demand. Contact centers can use AI to obtain more accurate predictions than they would with traditional approaches. AI and machine learning systems scan enormous data sets, discover patterns and trends, and make real-time scheduling adjustments to match customer demands.

This allows contact center managers to accurately predict customer demand so they can schedule enough agents to handle inquiries and ensure that customers don’t have to wait too long on hold. This also increases employee productivity, as they’re not spending too much time on a single customer interaction.

Improve agent productivity: Artificial intelligence improves flexibility for workforce management scheduling, scheduling agents when they’re most productive. Contact centers can monitor real-time data and then quickly adjust staffing levels to suit changing customer demands. 

And employees can respond to unanticipated variations in demand, such as an increase in interactions during peak hours or a drop in demand due to external circumstances. Scheduling the number of employees according to their productivity improves contact center efficiency and reduces idle time – all of which can help meet business goals.

Reduce costs: Automating specific tasks involved in forecasting and scheduling can reduce costs and improve day-to-day performance. Effective workforce forecasting also allows companies to ensure clients aren’t kept waiting for long periods of time when they reach out for assistance. This can help lower customer churn and increase loyalty, improving overall business outcomes.

Increase employee satisfaction: By automating forecasting and scheduling duties, contact center managers have more time to focus on other key responsibilities. They can focus on performing higher-level duties, such as establishing new strategies. Additionally, automating mundane tasks that contact center staff would traditionally have to tackle can boost agent morale, create a positive employee experience and improve contact center agent performance.

Best Practices for Leveraging AI-Powered Workforce Scheduling

To optimize efficiency, here are some best practices your contact center should follow when implementing AI-powered forecasting and scheduling.

Data analysis: Collect and analyze historical data to identify trends and patterns you can use to predict future demand. By analyzing this data, contact centers can create more accurate forecasts.

Multiple forecasting methods: Using various methods, such as time-series analysis, regression analysis and simulation modeling, can create a more comprehensive and accurate forecast.

Stakeholder input: It’s crucial to involve agents, supervisors and management in the forecasting and scheduling process. Gathering input from different stakeholders ensures the forecast is based on relevant data and assumptions.

Schedule monitoring: To optimize scheduling, it’s critical to continuously monitor and adjust contact center agent schedules. By adjusting schedules based on actual call volume, agent availability or unexpected events that impact staffing needs, contact centers can ensure forecasts remain accurate and relevant.

Communication and visibility: Effective communication is essential to ensure that all stakeholders are aware of the forecast and the reasoning behind it. Additionally, giving agents visibility into their schedules can help them plan their personal lives around their work schedules. This reduces the likelihood of scheduling conflicts, improves agent satisfaction and could help to reduce the overall agent turnover rate.

Engaged Employees; Satisfied Customers

Improving employee engagement is a critical aspect of contact center management. Contact center agents deal with customer inquiries and complaints, which can be stressful and emotionally difficult.

It’s vital to create a supportive work environment and employee experience strategy that supports the full employee journey – promoting growth, development and well-being. 

When equipped with emotional intelligence and given the right tools, training and flexibility needed to maintain a work-life balance, employees can more easily de-stress. Being less stressed and better prepared enables them to communicate more effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges, defuse conflicts at work and improve their customer management skills. This can lead to better customer satisfaction.

Harnessing the Strengths of Cloud-Native Workforce Engagement Management

In today’s ever-changing business landscape, companies must remain agile and responsive to market trends, shifts in customer demands and ensuring they meet regulatory requirements. This requires building a workforce that’s not only skilled and motivated, but also flexible and adaptable.

The Genesys Cloud™ platform provides a comprehensive set of workforce engagement management tools to help companies staff, schedule and plan smarter — while aligning with employees’ needs and regulatory requirements.

Optimize response times: Genesys Cloud Workforce Engagement Management offers built-in AI-powered forecasting and scheduling that delivers true flexibility and accuracy. It allows companies to respond efficiently to unexpected changes and handle everyday variability with ease — without compromising customer experience or employee morale. 

By providing transparency when monitoring systems, companies can ensure schedule adherence and resolve escalations quickly and effectively.

Gain insights from data: Because Genesys Cloud Workforce Management encompasses an integrated AI-powered process for automated workflows, companies can visualize and analyze interaction data to gain insights into events and surface opportunities for improvement. 

This empowers supervisors, quality managers, business analysts, risk managers and employees to make decisions based on important data. And it protects customers and businesses while meeting global compliance requirements. 

By managing overwhelming amounts of information across multiple sources, companies can ensure adherence. And it can help to avoid “red tape” limitations that could result in legal and technical challenges.

Improve employee retention: Employee retention is a significant challenge for many contact centers, especially in the face of increasing customer expectations. Genesys Cloud Workforce Engagement Management gives companies a complete set of tools, including employee engagement capabilities for learning and training, performance management, gamification, coaching, voice of the employee, and recognition to manage the employee development journey — all within a single cloud platform. 

These tools allow for two-way communications with employees to help them manage and improve performance and close any skills gaps. In addition, managers can schedule coaching sessions to provide targeted training based on specific interactions or ad hoc needs.

Gamification, for example, can help to transform traditional performance and training tasks into interactive, rewarding experiences. Gamification tools introduce healthy competition, real-time feedback and achievement-based recognition that help to create a dynamic and motivating work environment for contact center agents. 

This approach can not only drive higher participation in training and skill-building initiatives but also increases accountability and creates a sense of ownership in individual performance.

By turning metrics and goals into game-like challenges, agents are encouraged to achieve performance benchmarks in a more engaging and less stressful way. Leaderboards, badges and reward systems foster a sense of accomplishment and community, which significantly boosts morale and reduces attrition.

When agents feel recognized and rewarded for their progress and efforts, they’re more likely to remain invested in their roles and committed to delivering exceptional customer experiences.

Combined with other engagement tools like targeted coaching and two-way feedback, gamification supports continuous learning and closes performance gaps more effectively. As a result, organizations not only improve retention and productivity but also cultivate a culture of development and collaboration. 

Build Better Employee Experiences and Meet Customer Expectations

With a cloud-native workforce engagement management solution, you’ll get best-in-class employee resource management capabilities to ensure you remain agile and responsive in today’s fast-paced business environment. The Genesys Cloud platform’s innovative approach to forecasting and scheduling, integrated AI-powered workflows, and comprehensive employee engagement capabilities enable you to manage your workforce effectively and improve employee productivity. 

You can do this all while aligning with regulatory requirements. And your employees will remain motivated and engaged so you can ultimately meet rising customer expectations.

Read this guide to learn how modern workforce engagement tools can help you capture data on employee strengths and weaknesses, identify training needs with KPI dashboards, reduce turnover.