Workforce Management: Best practices for a WFM rollout Adam Rosen, Product Management Genesys Telecommunications, Inc. October 3, 2007

All rights reserved © 2006, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. Agenda  Who is Genesys?  What is Genesys WFM?  Rolling Out a New WFM Product  Migration Considerations  Principles of WFM to Consider  Evaluating Success  Training

All rights reserved © 2006, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. Who is Genesys?  48 locations worldwide  1,900 employees  ~4000 customers worldwide  More than 300 partners worldwide  Market leader #1 in CTI software (WW) #1 in VXML IVR (WW) #2 in management (US) #1 in online live collaboration (US)  125 million interactions managed per day  1.25 million agents enabled worldwide  100% Call Center Software Focused

All rights reserved © 2006, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. What is Genesys WFM?

All rights reserved © 2006, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. The Unique Value of Genesys WFM  Centralized configuration – integration to Genesys platform  Automated statistical feeds Regardless of underlying infrastructure For accurate forecasting and adherence  Comprehensive solution  Almost entirely browser-based (except for some configuration/administration functionality)  Open APIs to interface to third-party solutions  Software, Business Consulting and Professional Services = A holistic approach

All rights reserved © 2006, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. Rolling Out a New WFM Product  Start with a representative line of business Identify a “typical” line of business in terms of -Working rules (e.g. agent availability patterns, shifts, exceptions) -Call routing complexity -Business workflow Is that line of business migrating from another WFM tool? Excel? Ensure that users have been trained on the WFM product  Incremental rollout Start small, then expand with lessons learned Have strong Project Manager You can begin with locally-managed processes (e.g. forecasting) and then virtualize them over time Are you prepared to have two WFM tools in use simultaneously? Slide 1 of 2

All rights reserved © 2006, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. Rolling Out a New WFM Product  Consider using your WFM rollout to… Re-visit and simplify complex legacy rules Define new business practices necessary to achieve long-term vision Slide 2 of 2  Getting early user buy-in is very important End users can get very attached to a specific tool or process Forecasting and Scheduling professionals rely on WFM and therefore expect to be immediately productive They must understand differences between new & existing tools -Semantics/terminology, workflow Expose software to users early -Allows users to gain familiarity & comfort -Helps overcome many objections and resistance to change

All rights reserved © 2006, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. Migration Considerations  WFM tools will differ from one another in several ways Scheduling paradigm -“Set of shifts” approach vs. “Individual agent scheduling” approach What is a Shift? -“Fixed” vs. “Flexible” definition  Data migration Evaluate usefulness of historical data Data importing – what can and cannot be imported  Custom integrations and reports Can any of these integrations be updated by using an WFM SDK provided by the vendor?

All rights reserved © 2006, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. Principles of WFM to Consider  Entering “known obligations” for agents (meetings, trainings, time off, etc.) You will need to establish a process for determining who enters these into the system, and when In some cases, agents will be allowed to manage their own time off or exception requests, and you will need a process for reviewing those  Do you want optimal schedules to be built around these overheads, or do you want to apply these overheads after the schedule is built? Best practice is to put as much as possible into the system in advance, for the best-fit schedules Having these “pre-planned obligations” in the system also increases accuracy of multi-site forecasting Agent Planning

All rights reserved © 2006, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. Principles of WFM to Consider  How much usable historical data do you have? Can you easily get it into the WFM tool?  What service objectives does the WFM product support when determining staffing levels? Which ones are appropriate for your business? E.g. Goals may include Service Level, Average Speed of Answer, Maximum Occupancy, or Maximum Abandonment Percentage  What “shrinkage” do you need to plan for – i.e. to account for unplanned time lost by agents starting up computers, unscheduled breaks, etc. “Industry standard” shrinkage is around 15-20% for unproductive time Forecasting

All rights reserved © 2006, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. Principles of WFM to Consider  Forecasts & Schedules created centrally Schedules represent collection of blank shifts with no agent names and no consideration for planned overheads. Schedulers build schedules with profile agents, and then assign real agents to blank schedules.  Forecasts & Schedules created centrally Schedules created and assigned to specific agents prior to delivery to the local site. This is a less common model but is used by some customers.  Forecasts created centrally, but schedules created locally Agent schedules reflect the appropriate time zone, availabilities, and overheads for the site. This the best practice for multi-site contact centers where a central forecasting team will have best visibility into “demand” Scheduling

All rights reserved © 2006, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. Principles of WFM to Consider  Effective intra-day management is one of the best ways to reduce staffing costs and improve customer service  It is essential to monitor intra-day performance to anticipate deviations from the plan as early as possible  Monitor real-time adherence to ensure agent availability Train agents to put themselves in proper state when not on the phone Train supervisors to update schedule with approved deviations Consider rewarding agents based on adherence  Create contingency plans for how to put additional agents to work when crises arise Map out process in advance and teach it to supervisors Intra-day Management

All rights reserved © 2006, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. Principles of WFM to Consider  During roll-out, consider what reports will be used (and how they will be used) to measure: Forecasting accuracy Contact Center performance (Actual vs. Planned) Scheduling efficiency Tracking of shrinkage to improve future planning Agent adherence to schedule  Consider analyzing WFM data alongside other contact center data to uncover opportunities for improvement Agent sales per call from sales database Agent handle time from CTI/Routing reporting database Reporting

All rights reserved © 2006, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. Evaluating Success  Define success criteria up front Set up milestones with success criteria at each step -e.g. Start with simple configuration, follow a workflow, and then get more complex Determine who will decide if criteria have been met  Metrics: Before and after Forecasting accuracy -One way is to create forecast for past period (requires good set of historical data) -Another way is to compare WFM forecasting results with alternative method -Can uncover common problems such as statistics from ACD or Routing Platform not being configured in a consistent way with statistics provided by other sources Scheduling efficiency -Compare multi-skilled schedules against schedules created with other tools for number of over/understaffed hours, and schedule budget

All rights reserved © 2006, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. Training  Training supervisors, team leaders, and managers Much of the WFM interface may be intuitive but business rules may not be, especially if supervisors have been using different tool May need to train some users on multiple tools, such as where to create new agents and skills Consider how to allocate user permissions (Edit, Read Only, etc.)  Train agents on interface and explain benefits Viewing schedules Schedule trading Schedule bidding Requests for partial-day and full-day time off Preference requests

Extra Slide(s)

All rights reserved © 2006, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. Planning for WFM Implementation  Multi-site considerations Will you create optimal shifts for the entire enterprise and distribute to each location? Or, create optimal forecast and split it to each site, to allow Site-specific schedules to be built? -Best results are seen when building and managing schedules in a way that can be done most accurately, which is with the local team How should Sites be organized in WFM? -Sites are normally the base unit for building schedules but do not need to map directly to phone switches Is multi-site routing in use? If so, how is it done?  Collecting appropriate statistics These are the basis for all forecasting and thus, all scheduling Consider how AHT is defined on the ACD or Routing Platform Consider whether Call Volume statistic takes any abandonment into account