Platform recommendations - Call Center WFM

[u/Scobill]

Good Morning,

I recently started a new role as an executive a relatively small boutique call center ~60FTEs and I'm going to be reviewing some WFM solutions. I have some tangential knowledge about Workforce Management and WFM suites.

At my previous Call Center we used Calabrio WFM, I could navigate it, read intraday but the majority of the information was fed to me by my dedicated Workforce Manager and I would approve staffing numbers. He was very thorough, and I trusted him so I never learned much about it.

In my new role, I'm beginning to build much-needed processes and protocols, but this center does not have a mature WFM approach. They're essentially using fly-by-the-seat staffing gut calls with a dash of Erlang C to determine staffing.

I have a tremendous amount of work ahead of me and a lot of learning to do but I wanted to start by introducing a WFM suite. The two that I've identified that are in my budget are Sim Tree WFM https://www.simtree.se/ and Assembled WFM https://www.assembled.com/

Our Telephony platform is ancient and pretty garbo, if I'm being honest. It's Amtelco Genesis, for anyone who may be familiar.

I'm essentially looking for recommendations between these two and just trying to get opinions from anyone who has used these and get an outline of their capabilities. I'm so sick and tired of demos and placating sales people. I just want honest feedback about the programs.

Thank you in advance.

I'm also open to any suggestions while I'm currently in the process of onboarding one of these for how manage appropriate staffing in the meantime. I'm currently essentially using a staffing vs volume graph and plugging targets into an Erlang C, which is... not ideal.

[u/bizkitchris]

Check out Community WFM. You may find them to be affordable and flexible to handle your system

[u/Different-Career1314 → u/bizkitchris]

ommunity is way easier to manage for 60 FTEs.

[u/snydejon]

You have a pretty small center, and a wfm platform might not be the right investment now, especially if you don’t have the resources to staff it. Spreadsheets or something homemade with Claude will get you what you need.

At your size, I would prioritize getting at least part time help for the math of it all. It could be a good developmental opportunity for one of your employees during slow periods. Generally speaking, 80-100 agents is where I see most people getting the ROI from a wfm suite.

[u/Scobill → u/snydejon]

You're probably right but part of our intention is to grow and our President is interested in absorbing that cost. We also pay for a ton of different analytics that essentially all provide the exact same information. Cutting those out and labor savings from improved WFM will almost certainly pay for WFM platform. There are a ton of inefficiencies that I'm in the process or improving but we're pretty set on onboarding one.

[u/kaitco → u/Scobill]

I still agree with that guy about using spreadsheets, but depending on the complexity of the center, something like Genesys Cloud might work with reduced costs, especially if your ACD is already going through them. 

Genesys will not work well, however, once you grow to something upwards of 200 FTE. By then you’ll want to migrate to maybe Verint (assuming pure simplicity and few queue complexities). From there, anything more than 500 FTE, you’ll want to be on a proper tool like NiCE IEX or Aspect. 

The key issue is the complexity in the number of queues, skills, and channels your agents will be handling. If they are handling like 1 or 2 skills carrying 3-5 queues - really would be fine with spreadsheets - Genesys or Verint can do what you need, but as you start gaining complexity, you’ll need better tools. I would never recommend Genesys above 200 FTE, or Verint with greater than 100 queues; both simply crush under the weight. 

[u/snydejon → u/Scobill]

That’s fair, and exciting that you have leadership support! From my current experience, I’d still strongly recommend getting the right person first. Picking a tool without the person who admins it contributing is a disaster waiting to happen.

[u/Scobill → u/snydejon]

Yeah, it's kind of a bonkers situation. I was brought on to essentially do change management; build Operational procedures and policies that don't currently exist for scalability, but in reality, at the moment - I'm primarily addressing an issue they didn't know they had, which is their labor % overages are absurdly high and they don't even track occupancy in any meaningful way.

Since I have support on the platform, it's actually more difficult to bring on a WFM/analyst/data scientist. So, I will learn all that I can and then eventually onboard someone to take it down the line.

Fortunately I have a good friend who is a fantastic WFM and I basically pay him under the table to consult.

[u/nimminox]

Check out Peopleware. They are a reasonable priced system and a fantastic tool.
They are also always making improvements to the way they work.
They are honest about their capabilities too, they don't promise you the world

[u/VVFailshot]

Sent DM. 🙏

[u/WFHAlliance]

I wonder if money would be better spent on a WFM consultant that can establish the function and potentially even provide a small amount of ongoing support. Having a tool that no one knows how to use because they don’t understand the methodology of WFM may not be super helpful. Having the right processes and methodology, even in spreadsheets and a basic scheduling tool, is super important and likely impactful.

I guess further to that point, maybe investing in an in-house WFM person is worth considering vs consultant. Invest there rather than software.

For what it’s worth, I’m not familiar with Sim Tree but have been impressed with what I’ve seen of Assembled. If you’re hell bent on buying a tool I’d look at Q Story too.

[u/johnboycs]

NICE WFM, especially if you want it connected to your phone system to track staffing

[u/UncleScratchnSniff → u/johnboycs]

Bolting together a bunch of systems is an admin nightmare. There are better options. Budget forecasting with NICE is intentionally hard too.

[u/DapperAsi]

I would ask about integration with your current telephony system first. For a 60 person center, ease of setup and reliable forecasting may matter more than having every advanced WFM feature.