How often have I not heard comments from fellow developers, like: "That's designed for consumers; we make business software." What this implies is that users of business software tolerate a lower usability level. Yet, when you come right down to it, both consumers and business workers are basically people using software. Admittedly, these target groups [...]

One of the most controversial issues in a contact center is the scheduling of shifts, especially when a center works outside the regular nine-to-five working hours and weekends. Then we have to deal with evening shifts, and very often, overnight shifts as well. Generally these are not very popular with agents. They’re off when most [...]

No. This is not the movie sequel to “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”. Who are "the millennials" and why should you, as a contact center manager care? The millennials, better known as “Gen Y,” are young persons with birth years ranging from the early 1980s to the early 2000s. This is the first [...]

Measuring KPIs has always been a central task in workforce management, so honestly, what can gamification add to this? Isn’t it just another buzz word without any actual news value, much like the absence of clothes in the children’s tale, 'The Emperor's New Clothes'? We probably all know people addicted to Candy Crush or youngsters [...]

A couple of weeks ago I attended the “Close Network for Contact-Center-and-Customer-Services Managers” in Sweden. “Close” is the largest and most professional manager network in Sweden and a great forum for discussing challenges with experienced people in the same profession. It´s always interesting and fun to meet counterparts and learn from their challenges and processes. [...]

“Measure twice; cut once,” is a carpentry expression that recommends measuring pieces to be cut several times before actually proceeding. Obviously, if wrongly measured then cut, the action cannot be “uncut” or undone, thus wasting resources. The corresponding parallel in the contact center world is forecasting. In statistics, it is said: “Forecasts are always wrong, [...]

When working on the Calabrio WFM solution lately we have had a lot of discussions on the complicated topic of user intervention and psychology of the user when running systems. There is always a risk associated with doing things completely in the background without any user intervention. With software being able to make better decisions and [...]

Succeed in identifying escalations with calabrio analytics When a leading clothing retailer for men saw a rise in call escalations, the company knew it had to get to the bottom of why agents weren’t handling calls themselves. After all, a call escalation diverts a supervisor’s focus away from other important tasks, and agents should be […]