Call Center Intraday Management Technology

Matt McConnell is chairman, president and CEO of Knowlagent. Matt co-founded Knowlagent in 1995 with a vision of helping companies increase the level of customer service they deliver by improving the performance of their agents. Matt is the author of the book Customer Service at a Crossroads and holds 11 software patents.

Knowlagent is the leader in intraday management solutions for contact centers. Its patented RightTime software increases agent performance and productivity by making idle time useful, enabling agents to work on personalized and prioritized activity queues consisting of training, coaching, communication and other off-phone activities. Knowlagent’s solutions are on-demand, easy to use and require no capital expenditures. More than 375,000 agents and managers around the world use Knowlagent’s solutions every day. For more information, call 888-566-9457 or visit us online at www.knowlagent.com.

Recent talk in the industry takes exception with the concept of making idle time productive by suggesting there isn’t really much idle time to be used, that it would cause adherence issues with the call center workforce management tool, and associating it with the detrimental effects of multi-tasking (suggesting that it lowers agent performance). We see these as critiques based on some limited information. Research data, integration technology and feedback from those using technology to manage...

In a previous post, we covered the issues that workforce managers reported as their top challenges for 2012. Not surprisingly, the need to balance off-phone work while maintaining service levels was a top priority for workforce management professionals as it is their job to sustain this equilibrium within the call center.

To top it off, the pressure to ensure agents complete the training (or coaching, assessments, communications, etc.) necessary to keep agents performing is compounded by the...

“Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones.”
~Phillips Brooks

Call center agents hold the power of your brand promise in their hands.

The moment of truth can be when customers need to talk to an agent after exhausting self-service options.  Or, it can be the accumulation of experiences across all channels.

As problem calls increase and interaction points expand, companies need to adjust their customer experience strategies to ensure agents are equipped to...

In the first quarter of 2012, Knowlagent surveyed workforce management professionals to learn more about the goals and challenges that pertain to their role within the call center.  We wanted to understand more about the group whose daily responsibility is to deal with the complex nature of the contact center to match supply (agents) with demand (calls). We heard about the issues involved with scheduling agents, ensuring they have time to complete the necessary off-phone work that helps them be...