Choosing Wisely: Expert-Led Comparisons of Leading WFM Software for Contact Centres – Capacity Planning (3 of 10)

Navigating WFM Software Choices with Expert Guidance

Intro:

In the realm of contact centres, capacity planning serves as the heartbeat that keeps operations running smoothly and efficiently. It's not just about managing activities but also about controlling costs, and coordinating with other departments, for example, planning for new hires and training calendars. A robust capacity planner is essential for forecasting workforce needs and ensuring that service levels are consistently met.

The lowest time entity for an FTE calculation is one week, and most capacity plans operate on this base cadence. In this article, we delve into the capacity planning features of leading WFM software solutions, assessing their strengths and weaknesses in supporting the critical functions of a contact centre

Genesys

Capacity planning is a critical aspect of workforce optimisation that focuses on determining the required staffing levels to meet forecasted contact volumes and service level goals. There is not currently a staffing calculator or capacity planning module offered for Genesys WFM Cloud - it is on the roadmap for 2024/25. Once released, this post will be updated when I have had the opportunity to review this future function, so the following describes the process a planner has to go through in Genesys WFM Cloud to assess future staffing requirements.

1. Forecasting Analysis: Capacity planning starts with detailed forecasting of contact volumes based on historical data, trends, and business insights. As described in an earlier post, Genesys Cloud WFM utilises advanced algorithms to generate forecasts that predict future workload accurately, and the planner can (should) tailor and modify the forecasts to reflect diverse expectations and predictions.

2. Determining Required Staffing Levels: Once the forecasted contact volumes are determined, Genesys Cloud WFM calculates the number of agents required to handle the anticipated workload efficiently. This calculation considers factors such as average handle time, shrinkage, and service level objectives. The calculation is performed by building a schedule, so the resulting staffing levels will include a view of gross and net staffing including and excluding known shrinkage factors.

3. Scenario Modeling: Genesys Cloud WFM allows for scenario modelling to assess different staffing objectives and their impact on service levels, costs, and agent productivity. By adjusting variables like staffing levels, scheduling rules, and service metrics, planners can optimise workforce capacity for various scenarios. In effect, you will change the base parameters and build schedules to investigate the impact.

4. Scheduling Optimisation: Capacity planning in Genesys Cloud WFM also involves optimising agent schedules to align with the forecasted workload. By adjusting shifts, breaks, and off-days, planners ensure that staffing levels match demand while considering agent preferences and labour laws, along with considerations for attrition.

5. Real-Time Adherence Monitoring: Genesys Cloud WFM provides real-time adherence monitoring to track agent adherence to schedules after capacity planning and scheduling. This allows supervisors to make real-time adjustments to optimise capacity utilisation and address deviations from planned schedules promptly.

6. Reporting and Analysis: Genesys Cloud WFM offers reporting and analysis tools to evaluate capacity planning effectiveness. Planners can generate performance reports, analyse key metrics like service level attainment and agent utilisation, and identify areas for continuous improvement.

7. Continuous Optimisation: Capacity planning in Genesys Cloud WFM is an iterative process that involves continuous monitoring, feedback gathering, and adjustments to staffing levels and scheduling practices.

Overall, capacity planning in Genesys Cloud WFM is a comprehensive process that combines forecasting, scheduling optimisation, scenario modelling, and real-time monitoring to ensure organisations have the right number of agents with the right skills at the right times to meet customer demand effectively. While currently quite labour-intensive, one can hope that the process will be more straightforward once the capacity planning modules are released.

injixo

injixo offers a basic long-term capacity planning feature within its Workforce Management (WFM) software, aimed at providing insights into future hiring and training needs. This feature is in the early stages of development and allows users to view the total staff requirements that are saved, total contracted capacity, and potential high-level coverage for a full calendar year.

Strengths

• Basic Ingredients Available: Although the capacity feature is not suitable for thorough long-term capacity planning, injixo's API provides access to essential data, offering the necessary ingredients to feed your external capacity planning for detailed analysis.

Weaknesses

• Limited Functionality: The current version is the very first version and still pretty basic, lacking advanced features and detailed capabilities needed for comprehensive long-term capacity planning.

• No Integration with Absences: Absences are not factored into the capacity feature, which can significantly impact the outcome.

• Manual Data Input: Staff requirements must be calculated or manually entered and saved under the Forecast section before they appear in the capacity planning table, adding extra steps and potential for errors.

• Inadequate Coverage Analysis: The approach of subtracting the total staff requirements from the total contracted capacity without e.g. detailed shrinkage analysis, attrition, training learning curve, and occupancy does not provide a nuanced view of coverage gaps or overstaffing for the purpose of long-term capacity planning.

Verint

Verint’s long-range forecasting and staff modelling are conducted in a separate client called "Strategic Planner”, which allows you to account for additional factors such as shrinkage, attrition, and others.

Strengths

• Scenario-based modelling is available for both weekly and monthly plans.

• Supports integration with Verint WFM solution for a cohesive workflow.

Weaknesses

• User interface: the application is rather basic and is not very user-friendly

• Initial setup: setting up and fine-tuning capacity plans can be time-consuming and require separate training.

Calabrio

When it comes to Long-Term budget and FTE planning Calabrio has some tools that can help you in this department. Whilst it is common for most companies to do their Capacity Plans outside of WFM, Calabrio can help get some of the key information needed to build your Capacity Plan.

Calabrio’s Budgets module helps you calculate the forecasted resources and actual resources for your long-term plans. You can use it to make informed decisions such as how many new employees you need to hire and when.

In the budget module users can apply additional factors such as shrinkage, temp staff and overtime to help get a view of long-term staffing requirements versus actual staff employed. You can also factor in Utilization and productivity into your staffing calculations. The budget module can be viewed by Day, Week and Month and adjustments can be made at each level to get a more accurate view of staffing requirements.

Strengths

• Easy to get staffing requirements using historical data and future forecasts for budget planning purposes.

• Calculates Actual FTE required by Day, Week and Month so there is no need to have complicated spreadsheets unless you have other external factors influencing your FTE.

• Allows for additional assumptions on things like Holiday, Sickness and Overtime, you can also account for productivity.

Weaknesses

• No ability to ingest external data such as marketing campaigns or sales-driven activity, which could impact your future forecasts and staffing requirements. These would need to be manually calculated and applied to your forecast.

• Does not reforecast automatically, meaning as things change it requires user input to re-adjust the forecast and actual FTE.

NICE WFM

NICE WFM's Capacity Planner, known as long-term planner, is a good tool designed to calculate the FTE (Full-Time Equivalent) required to achieve service levels by using actual interval profiles and Erlang calculations. Although long-term forecasts, allow users to change weekly totals and translate these back to intervals to drive schedules. The tool also effectively incorporates shrinkage, costs, and fields for new hires and attrition, providing a comprehensive view of workforce requirements over extended periods. It is also quick and easy to try out different SLA and occupancy levels. However, it lacks integration with actual FTE schedules, requiring manual processes. Additionally, its costing functions are basic, leading many users to build their capacity tools outside of NICE WFM for detailed budgeting and contact centre management.

Strengths

1. Accurate Calculations: Uses actual interval profiles and Erlang to calculate the FTE needed to meet service levels.

2. Long-Term to Short-Term Forecasting: Allows changing long-term forecasts, such as weekly totals, and translating these back to intervals to drive schedules.

3. Flexibility: Quick and easy to try out different SLA and occupancy levels.

Weaknesses

1. Lack of FTE Integration: No integration with actual FTE schedules, necessitating manual processes.

2. Basic Costing Functions: Costing functions are basic and not sufficient for detailed budgeting.

3. External Tool Dependency: Many users need to build additional capacity planning tools outside of NICE WFM to adequately budget and manage contact centres.

4. Application Placement: The app is in the supervisor workstation, feeling more like an add-on application rather than a core component.

Alvaria/Aspect

Alvaria stands out in capacity planning through its use of scenarios, simplifying the maintenance and execution of comprehensive What-If analyses. These scenarios can encompass a variety of factors, including volumes, channels, service levels, occupancy limits, concurrency, and shrinkage. Alvaria also offers the flexibility to define Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) metrics based on your own criteria or specific state regulations.

The user interface, however, lacks aesthetic appeal, and since the scenarios are separate, they must be exported to an external tool such as Excel for comparison.

Alvaria's ability to project forecasts at interval levels up to a decade ahead makes it particularly strong for long-term planning. You can formalize any of these projections and either create schedules from scratch or complete a schedule test plan using existing schedules.

Strengths

1. Accurate Calculations: Uses actual interval profiles and Erlang to calculate the FTE needed to meet service levels.

2. Long-Term to Short-Term Forecasting: Allows changing long-term forecasts, such as weekly totals, and translating these back to intervals to drive schedules.

3. Flexibility: Quick and easy to try out different SLA and occupancy levels.

4. Options: Volume only, Staffing, Workload or Budget.

Weaknesses

1. Dated UI: UI can look very dated and basic, where the visuals lack, functionality makes up.

2. External comparison: With no integrated way to compare capacity plans, you must export before you can see how variations.

3. Complex requirements take time: The more complex the scenario, the longer it will take to run. The AutoRun option does allow you to run out of office hours to tackle this.

Summary

While the leading WFM software solutions offer various features for capacity planning, they all fall short of providing a complete solution that meets the intricate needs of a contact centre. These tools often require users to build additional external solutions, typically more editable BI applications, to achieve comprehensive capacity planning. The capacity planner is the core heartbeat of a contact centre, vital for controlling costs, coordinating departmental activities, and planning new hires, training calendars, and all shrinkage.

Moreover, these WFM solutions offer no support for how capacity planning operates within timelines as a project management app does. In addition to requiring external solutions, you must also set expectations that you will need an expert in capacity planning to design and deliver effective capacity plan governance. As contact centres continue to evolve, the need for more integrated and powerful capacity planning tools becomes increasingly evident, highlighting the necessity for continuous innovation and development in WFM software.