Advancements in Contact Center Workforce Optimization—Global

Advancements in Contact Center Workforce Optimization—Global


Innovation Powered by AI Is Accelerating Contact Center Growth Opportunities

Frost & Sullivan defines workforce optimization (WFO) as a strategy to integrate disparate contact center workforce applications, monitor and analyze customer and agent interactions, and automate processes to optimize resources. WFO is an important segment of the contact center industry because it drives performance, agent engagement, and an improved customer experience (CX).

Improving employee experience (EX) is a critical part of a WFO strategy. This has been a longstanding effort within customer care because the contact center industry has traditionally had high employee turnover (agent churn). Efforts are well underway to address churn for multiple reasons, including the cost of replacing and training agents, the loss of more seasoned, knowledgeable agents (and that knowledge with them), and the direct impact that unhappy agents can have on customer interactions.

Inclusive to WFO are complementary functions under a smaller umbrella of workforce engagement management (WEM) that focus on recruitment, onboarding, evaluating, training, coaching, and motivating the workforce, which is critical in WFO strategies.

WEM is a broad category that embraces both mindsets and solution sets. The mindset springs from the realization that EX and CX are equally important and interdependent—all areas of the contact center impact WEM. This includes enhancements to self-service channels that deflect live agent interactions or reduce agent effort during more complex calls to improve agent engagement.

WFO improvements are rapidly accelerating, particularly through the infusion of AI technologies. For instance, myriad solution providers are marketing virtual agent assist bots that construct real-time transcriptions and perform analytics to guide agents during interactions and create post-call summaries. These same tools can also automatically pinpoint training and coaching opportunities in real time. Gamification, which was previously generally thought of as a nice-to-have feature, has grown in capabilities and popularity due to its demonstrable benefits inside and outside the contact center with a solid return on investment (ROI).

This insight details the trends and innovations that are impacting contact center WFO today, particularly through the use of AI technologies. It outlines growth opportunities that solution providers can attain by taking advantage of maturing technologies and enterprise market needs. It also lays out a sampling of solution provider use cases that are having an impact on WFO.


Strategic Imperatives
Why is it Increasingly Difficult to Grow?
The Strategic Imperative 8™
The Impact of the Top Three Strategic Imperatives on the Global Workforce Optimization (WFO) Market
Strategic Objectives of This Study
Growth Opportunities Fuel the Growth Pipeline Engine™
Growth Environment
The State of the Workforce Optimization Market—2024
The Workforce Optimization Market
Workforce Engagement Growth Environment
2023 Global Contact Center Survey Results/Methodology
Customer Research Methodology and Respondent Profile
Top Goals: Why Organizational Objectives Contrast Contact Center Objectives
Employee Engagement Initiatives Can Reduce Attrition
NTT 2023 Global Customer Experience Report: WFO Key Findings
Employee Net Promotor Scores (eNPS) Are Significantly Higher when Engagement Initiatives and the Right Solutions are in Place
Analytics on Quality Monitoring and Performance Management Is a Top Investment for Employee Engagement
Advancements and Investments in WFO Technology
The Stages of an Employee Life Cycle
From Filling Agent Seats to Quality Hires: Insuring Best Fit and Reducing Churn through AI and Automation
Solutions Spotlight: Verint Intelligent Interviewing
Solutions Spotlight: Zenarate AI Coach Agent Development Platform
Solutions Spotlight: Zenarate AI Coach—Deeper Dive
Solutions Spotlight: Zoho Recruit
AI-Powered Employee Assistance
Solutions Spotlight: Cisco AI Assistant
Forecasting and Scheduling in the Age of Digital Transformation
Solutions Spotlight: NICE True to Interval (TTI) Analytics
Solution Provider Examples
Calabrio
CallMiner
Growth Opportunity Analysis
Workforce Optimization Growth Drivers
Workforce Optimization Growth Restraints
Growth Opportunity Universe
Growth Opportunity 1: Achieving the Optimal Mix of Live and Virtual Assistance
Growth Opportunity 1: Achieving the Optimal Mix of Live and Virtual Assistance (continued)
Growth Opportunity 2: Using AI to Optimize the Agent Life Cycle
Growth Opportunity 2: Using AI to Optimize the Agent Life Cycle (continued)
List of Exhibits
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