How to Improve Contact Center Workforce Management

Most call centers aim to answer 80% of calls within 20 seconds, while millennials and Gen-Z customers prefer self-service options, even when human customer support is available. Contact center workforce management is key to meeting and exceeding these expectations.

Our State of CX Trends Report found that 86% of companies with multiple CX tools report having siloed data, making it difficult to provide customers with exceptional experiences. Our guide breaks down contact center WFM in detail, diving into the best ways to improve your WFM and deliver a unified customer experience.

What Is Contact Center Workforce Management?

Contact center workforce management is the process of strategically aligning your staff and resources to meet business objectives while also delivering a seamless customer experience. WFM ensures that the right agents, with the right skills, are available at the right times, helping to balance efficiency, cost control, and customer satisfaction.

To achieve this, WFM optimizes scheduling and performance based on key factors, including:

• Agent availability: Ensuring you have the right number of agents scheduled at peak times to meet customer expectations without overstaffing or underutilizing resources.
• Forecasted contact volume: Analyzing historical data and trends to predict customer interactions, allowing for proactive staffing adjustments to prevent long wait times or unnecessary labor costs.
• Revenue targets: Scheduling top-performing agents during peak hours or for high-value interactions to enhance customer experience and maximize revenue opportunities.

Effective WFM is about finding the right balance of optimized staffing, meeting customer needs, operational efficiency, and employee well-being to create a more productive and cost-effective contact center.

Related: How to Build a High-Performing B2B Call Center

How Contact Center WFM Works

Workforce management in a contact center is about finding the perfect balance between staffing levels, customer demand, and operational efficiency. It starts with forecasting customer interactions based on historical data and trends and then creating optimized schedules that align agent availability with the expected future workload. 

Throughout the day, real-time adjustments ensure smooth operations, whether that means reallocating staff, adjusting breaks, or responding to unexpected call spikes. When done right, WFM helps reduce costs, prevent agent burnout, and improve both employee and customer experiences.

Key Components of the WFM Cycle

Let’s break it down into its key components:

Forecasting

Forecasting is the blueprint for a successful contact center WFM strategy. It involves analyzing historical data to predict future customer interactions accurately, like call volumes, email inquiries, chat sessions, and other contact types. Spotting trends and patterns allows you to prepare for peak times, avoid understaffing, and keep customers happy.

💡 Why it matters: Accurate forecasting ensures you have just the right number of agents to handle customer interactions, preventing long wait times, enhancing the customer experience, and preventing overwhelmed employees.

Effective forecasting takes into account various factors, such as:

• Seasonality: Consider how your contact volume fluctuates during different times of the year, such as holidays or peak sales periods.
• Business changes: Account for any planned promotions, product launches, or other initiatives that may impact customer contacts.
• External factors: Monitor external events, such as weather conditions or economic changes, that may influence customer behavior.

Pro tip: Use AI-powered forecasting tools to recognize complex patterns in large datasets. This helps you adjust for expected and unexpected external factors — like weather events or economic shifts — so your staffing levels are always spot on.

Related: The Complete Guide to Call Center Forecasting

Scheduling

Once you have your forecasts in place, the next step is to create schedules that optimize your workforce resources. Effective scheduling considers multiple factors, including agent availability, skills, anticipated workload, and customer demand across different channels. This is more than simply plugging names into time slots — it’s about balancing business needs with agent well-being.

💡 Why it matters: Optimized schedules balance meeting customer needs, optimizing agent workflows, and controlling operational costs.

During your scheduling process, consider the following:

• Agent skills: Match the right agents to the right tasks based on their expertise. If technical support calls spike in the evenings, ensure agents with strong troubleshooting skills are scheduled during those hours. Contact center workforce management software makes it easier to align skills with demand.
• Availability preferences: Consider agent preferences for shift times, days off, and break periods. When possible, accommodating these preferences can improve agent satisfaction and reduce turnover.
• Service level agreements (SLAs): Ensure that your schedules align with your SLAs, which define the expected response times and resolution targets for customer interactions. For example, if your SLA requires 80% of inbound calls to be answered within 20 seconds, your schedules should reflect the necessary staffing levels to meet that goal.
• Flexible Scheduling: To empower agents and increase job satisfaction, offer flexible scheduling options, such as shift swapping and self-scheduling.
• Multi-skilled agent scheduling: Effectively schedule agents skilled in multiple channels to increase efficiency.
• Skills-based routing and scheduling: Ensure customers are routed to agents with the right expertise, reducing call transfers and increasing first call resolution (FCR). A well-structured schedule aligns skill demand with availability, ensuring customers get the help they need without unnecessary delays.
• Omnichannel workforce management: Customers expect a seamless experience whether they reach out via phone, live chat, email, or social media. An omnichannel contact center balances staffing levels across all channels for a consistent CX.

Pro tip: Implement flexible scheduling options, like self-scheduling and shift swapping. This empowers agents, increases job satisfaction, and helps reduce absenteeism while keeping service levels on track.

Optimized schedules balance meeting customer needs, optimizing agent workflows, and controlling operational costs.

Related: Nextiva Workforce Scheduling: Where Automation Meets Optimization

Intraday management

Even with the most accurate forecasts and well-planned schedules, unexpected events can disrupt your contact center operations. Intraday management involves monitoring real-time performance and adjusting as needed to ensure you meet your bottom-line service level objectives.

💡 Why it matters: Staying agile and making adjustments throughout the day allow you to ensure smooth operations and meet customer service goals, even when things don’t go as planned.

Some common intraday management activities include:

• Monitoring call volume and other key metrics in real-time to identify any deviations from the forecast.
• Adjusting agent breaks and lunches to ensure adequate coverage during peak periods.
• Redeploying agents from one channel to another to handle unexpected spikes in volume.
• Offering voluntary time off or overtime to agents based on real-time staffing needs.

Proactively managing your contact center operations throughout the day allows you to maintain a high level of service quality and responsiveness while also meeting employee satisfaction goals.

Pro tip: Use real-time dashboards to monitor call volumes, agent availability, and performance metrics. If needed, reassign agents across channels or adjust break times to maintain service levels.

Performance Management

Contact center WFM isn’t just about getting the right number of agents in place—it’s also about ensuring they perform at their best. 

💡 Why it matters: When agents are engaged and well-supported, they deliver better customer experiences, leading to higher satisfaction and loyalty.

Performance management in a contact center typically includes:

• Setting clear performance goals and expectations for agents based on their roles and skill levels
• Monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) such as average handle time, FCR rate, and customer satisfaction scores
• Providing regular feedback and coaching to agents to help them develop their skills and improve employee engagement and your employee experience
• Identifying top performers among your contact center agents and recognizing their achievements to boost morale and motivation
• Implementing training and development programs to enhance agent knowledge and capabilities

Continuously monitoring and managing agent performance ensures that your contact center consistently delivers high-quality customer service.

Pro tip: Recognize and reward top performers to boost morale. Regular coaching sessions and training programs can also help underperforming agents improve, strengthening your entire team.

Reporting & analytics

Access to comprehensive reporting and analytics helps you make smarter WFM decisions. With the right data, you can also continuously improve your call center workforce management processes. Collecting and analyzing data from various sources, such as your automatic call distributor (ACD), customer relationship management (CRM) system, and quality monitoring tools, you can gain valuable insights into your contact center performance.

💡 Why it matters: Strong analytics provide insights into what’s working (and what’s not), helping you optimize schedules, improve forecasting, and enhance agent performance.

Some key areas to focus on in your reporting and analytics include:

• Forecast accuracy: Compare your forecasted contact volume and handle times to actual results to identify areas for improvement.
• Schedule adherence: Monitor how well agents adhere to their scheduled shifts and identify any patterns of absenteeism or tardiness.
• KPI trends: Track key performance metrics over time to identify trends and opportunities for optimization.
• Customer feedback: Analyze customer satisfaction surveys (CSAT) and other feedback channels to gauge the effectiveness of your WFM strategies in delivering a positive, unified customer experience.

Pro tip: Automate reporting where possible. AI-driven analytics can help identify trends faster, allowing you to adjust staffing and workflows proactively rather than reactively.

Related: How to Spot Call Center Absenteeism and Fix It

Adapting to the Modern Contact Center

Employees and contact center managers must navigate the challenges of remote and hybrid work environments while maintaining efficiency across their teams. Here are a few challenges:

• Maintaining seamless operations across dispersed teams: Remote and hybrid agents need the right equipment and reliable communication tools to stay connected and productive. However, ensuring consistency across locations can be difficult.
• Balancing AI-driven efficiency with human expertise: While AI and automation can improve forecasting, scheduling, and analytics, integrating these tools effectively without disrupting workflows or diminishing the human touch remains challenging.
• Empowering agents without adding complexity: Giving agents more control over their schedules with self-service tools and mobile access can enhance flexibility and satisfaction, but implementing these systems to simplify rather than complicate workforce management is essential.

To overcome these challenges, businesses are investing in advanced workforce management solutions that support hybrid teams, enhance automation, and provide greater flexibility for agents.

Contact Center vs. Call Center WFM

You may wonder how contact center WFM differs from traditional call center WFM. While there is some overlap, there are also key differences:

Component	Contact Center WFM	Call Center WFM
Scope	Encompasses all customer interaction channels (calls, emails, chats, social media, etc.)	Focused solely on managing phone interactions
Scheduling	Involves scheduling agents across multiple skill sets and channels	Primarily concerned with scheduling call center agents
Technology	Often requires a unified platform to manage all channels effectively	May use standalone tools focused on call management
Metrics	Tracks a broader range of KPIs across all channels	Primarily focused on call-related metrics like average handle time

As you can see, contact center WFM takes a more holistic view of customer interactions, while call center workforce management is more narrowly focused.

Benefits of Workforce Management Solutions

So, why should you consider using contact center WFM software? There are several key benefits:

📈 Improved efficiency: By managing all your customer interactions through a single platform, you can streamline processes and centralize data management. This eliminates the need to toggle between multiple systems and reduces the risk of errors or missed information.

👓 Enhanced visibility: A unified WFM solution provides a bird’s-eye view of your entire contact center operation. You can easily see how all your channels are performing and identify areas for improvement.

⭐ Optimized resource allocation: With a unified platform, you can schedule the right agents with the right skills across all channels. This helps optimize your resources and ensures customers receive the best possible service.

💲 Reduced costs: Implementing a workforce management contact center can help reduce costs by eliminating the need for multiple systems and licenses. You can manage your entire operation more efficiently with a single platform.

☺️ Improved agent experience: A unified WFM contact center provides a consistent omnichannel experience for your agents, regardless of which channel they’re working on. This can help improve agent satisfaction and retention by providing clear expectations and performance management across the board.

Making Contact Center WFM Work for You

Effective workforce management is the key to running a high-performing contact center. With the right workforce management tools, you can accurately forecast demand, optimize scheduling, and track performance in real time, which results in reduced wait times, improved first-call resolution, increased efficiency, and a better customer experience.

With Nextiva’s all-in-one WFM solution, you can streamline operations with intuitive scheduling, real-time analytics, and automation, ensuring the right agents are always in place to deliver exceptional customer service.Ready to transform your contact center? Modernize your team with Nextiva’s Workforce Engagement Management solution, one platform designed for both customer and employee success.

Related: Mastering Workforce Management in Your Call Center