The Future of WFO in the Cloud is NOW

Contact centers need workforce optimization solutions such as recording, quality assurance (QA), workforce management (WFM) and speech analytics (SA) to optimize and engage their agents and to capture customer insights. For years, companies purchased these solutions, typically one at a time, and implemented them on-premise, as this was the only option. Often, by the time they fully implemented what they thought was a new QA or WFM solution, a newer version with enhanced capabilities was available, but they couldn’t access it. Even more frustrating was when they bought a QA or WFM solution and discovered a year later that the servers it ran on were no longer being supported, leaving no choice but to buy new servers. Even with the falling price of servers, this was a tough sell and used up budget that was allocated for other projects. The cloud solves these issues by eliminating them. The standard benefits of cloud solutions are:

1. Elimination of large up-front capital investments
2. Elimination of the need to purchase and implement hardware and software
3. Elimination of dependence on internal IT department
4. Elimination of upgrade fees
5. Ongoing application upgrades
6. Ease of scaling up and down

Cloud-based WFO solutions provide contact center managers with additional benefits, including:

1. Access to contact center technical and operations experts who can help users realize the full benefits from their solutions
2. Access to large server capacity that can handle planned and unplanned volumes
3. Access to additional WFO modules without the need for an on-site implementation

The cloud doesn’t eliminate all of the work required to realize the benefits from WFO applications, but it does take care of the low-value activities. Users still need to learn to operate and maintain each of the WFO applications, as in the case for QA, WFM and SA. For QA, users need to create monitoring forms and perform the evaluation process. For speech analytics, users need to define and refine their search criteria and make sure that findings are accurate so that they can be applied on a timely basis. With WFM, users need to create forecasts and schedules and use the solution to improve agent adherence and to enable staff members to pick and swap their schedules and time off. To decide if a cloud-based WFO solution if right for your company, see DMG’s Cloud-Based WFO Decision Framework.

Donna Fluss, DMG Consulting LLC

Donna Fluss, Founder and President of DMG Consulting LLC, provides a unique and unparalleled understanding of the people, processes and technology that drive the strategic direction of the dynamic and rapidly transforming contact center and back-office markets. Donna can be reached at [email protected].