Systems and methods for providing workforce optimization to branch and back offices

Abstract

Systems and methods for providing workforce optimization are provided. A representative method includes: planning a first campaign to implement business goals; scheduling and deploying a workforce in accordance with the campaign to produce a plurality of interactions, at least one of the interactions involving a customer and a first agent of a contact center, at least another of the interactions involving a customer and a second agent of a branch office or back office; measuring performance of the first agent and the second agent on at least a portion of the interactions to produce a set of quality metrics for the agents; combining at least a portion of quality metrics to produce performance indicators; and using the performance indicators in the planning step of a second campaign or another iteration of the first campaign.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method for providing workforce optimization comprising:
 planning a first campaign to implement business goals;   scheduling and deploying a workforce by a forecasting and scheduling component of a workforce management system implemented on a computer in accordance with the first campaign to produce a plurality of interactions, at least a first one of the interactions involving a first customer and a first agent of a contact center that is scheduled based on availability of agents of the branch office or of the back office to accommodate customer contacts, at least a second one of the interactions involving a second customer and a second agent of a branch office or back office that is scheduled such that the second agent is available for receiving redirected customer contacts, the second of the interactions resulting from at least one customer contact intended for the contact center being selectively redirected from the contact center to the branch office or back office based on a known skill set of the second agent, wherein the branch office or the back office is part of the same enterprise as the contact center but the primary purpose is not handling customer contacts;   measuring performance of the first agent and the second agent on at least a portion of the interactions by a tracking component of the workforce management system implemented on the computer to produce a set of quality metrics for the agents, wherein the performance of the first agent is measured using a first parameter from an automatic call distributor (ACD) and the performance of the second agent is measured using a second parameter from workstation screen activity for the second agent;   combining at least a portion of quality metrics to produce performance indicators; and   using the performance indicators in the planning step of a second campaign or another iteration of the first campaign.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the business goals are defined in terms of metrics that describe how the agents are expected to perform. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising allocating a contact directed to the contact center to an agent of the branch office or the back office such that an agent of either the branch office or an agent of the back office interacts with a customer attempting to contact the contact center. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein measuring performance of the second agent comprises:
 capturing screen data associated with a workstation of the second agent; and   analyzing the screen data to determine at least some of the quality metrics.   
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising recording at least a portion of the interactions. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein measuring performance comprises measuring performance by using quality monitoring and call recording tools to assess at least one quality score and at least one of the interactions. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising using analytics to provide insights on at least one skill or knowledge gap of at least one of the agents. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 7 , further comprising providing training to address the at least one skill and knowledge gap for the at least one of the agents. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 analyzing and identifying opportunities and correlating the opportunities with at least one key performance indicator and at least one scorecard; and   developing at least one quality monitoring score to be used by the workforce management system to produce staffing models that integrate the agents of the contact center and at least one of the branch office and the back office.   
     
     
         10 . A system for providing workforce optimization comprising:
 a forecasting and scheduling component of a workforce management system implemented on a computer operative to plan a first campaign to implement business goals and to schedule and deploy a workforce in accordance with the first campaign to produce a plurality of interactions, at least a first one of the interactions involving a first customer and a first agent of a contact center that is scheduled based on availability of agents of the branch office or of the back office to accommodate customer contacts, at least a second one of the interactions involving a second customer and a second agent of a branch office or back office that is scheduled such that the second agent is available for receiving redirected customer contacts, the other of the interactions resulting from at least one customer contact intended for the contact center being selectively redirected from the contact center to the branch office of the back office based on a known skill set of the second agent, wherein the branch office or the back office is part of the same enterprise as the contact center but the primary purpose is not handling customer contacts;   a tracking component of the workforce management system implemented on the computer operative to measure performance of the first agent and the second agent on at least a portion of the interactions to produce a set of quality metrics for the agents, wherein the performance of the first agent is measured using a first parameter from an automatic call distributor (ACD) and the performance of the second agent is measured using a second parameter from workstation screen activity for the second agent, and to combine at least a portion of quality metrics to produce performance indicators;   the forecasting and scheduling component further operative to use the performance indicators in the planning step of a second campaign or another iteration of the first campaign.   
     
     
         11 . The system of  claim 10 , wherein the tasks directed to the contact center comprise contacts by customers. 
     
     
         12 . The system of  claim 10 , further comprising an automatic call distributor (ACD) operative to receive customer contacts and to route the contacts to agents of the contact center. 
     
     
         13 . The system of  claim 12 , wherein at least some of the contacts are Internet Protocol (IP) telephone contacts and the ACD is operative to route at least some of the IP telephone contacts, that were directed to the contact center by customers, to at least one of the branch office and the back office. 
     
     
         14 . The system of  claim 10 , further comprising a recorder operative to record interactions between the agents and the customers. 
     
     
         15 . The system of  claim 10 , further comprising a screen capture engine operative to capture screen shots associated with record interactions between the customers and the agents of the branch office or the back office.