{"id":1751,"date":"2022-02-17T20:37:48","date_gmt":"2022-02-17T20:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.replicant.ai\/your-checklist-to-survive-the-contact-center-labor-crisis\/"},"modified":"2022-11-01T01:17:46","modified_gmt":"2022-11-01T01:17:46","slug":"your-checklist-to-survive-the-contact-center-labor-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.replicant.com\/blog\/your-checklist-to-survive-the-contact-center-labor-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Checklist to Survive the Contact Center Labor Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hiring shortages, high agent turnover, and unpredictable surges in call volumes are just a few of the challenges facing contact centers today.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As a result, workforce management (WFM) has never been more difficult. The available pool of qualified agents is shrinking and the risk of training new employees comes with the possibility they will quickly churn.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As WFM challenges persist in 2022, most contact centers are accelerating their plans for automation \u2013 but knowing where to begin can be the hardest part. This checklist will help you navigate the contact center labor crisis and come out stronger than before.\u00a0<\/span><b><\/b><\/p>\n<p>Download the checklist.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.replicant.ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/Your-Checklist-to-Survive-the-Contact-Center-Labor-Crisis.pdf\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-7425\" src=\"https:\/\/www.replicant.ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/ChecklistToSurviveCCLaborCrisis_2501x469-2-1024x192.png\" alt=\"Overcome the contact center labor crisis with Replicant.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"192\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>\u2705 Utilize agent capacity wisely<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">High utilization rates can lead to burnout and further exacerbate turnover issues. Many organizations have seen this affect their <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/hbr.org\/2017\/04\/employee-burnout-is-a-problem-with-the-company-not-the-person\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">most talented employees<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, as they\u2019re often given the largest workloads. Create a culture that encourages breaks between conversations, and predictable shifts that minimize overtime.\u00a0<\/span><b><\/b><\/p>\n<h2>\u2705 Plan for seasonality<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Forecasting in today\u2019s customer service climate is nearly impossible. But you probably have a sense of your organization\u2019s \u201cbusy season.\u201d Now is the time to prepare for it. Use your next high-volume cycle as a goalpost to have an automation solution in place for at least one use case to minimize the impact of call spikes on your live agents.\u00a0<\/span><b><\/b><\/p>\n<h2>\u2705 Prepare for unpredictable demand<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you had asked yourself if you were prepared for the future in 2019, what would you have said? How would your answer be different today? Unpredictability is inherent to contact centers. Plan for it now by exploring technologies that can automate customer service requests to alleviate unpredictable spikes in volume, and begin to add them to your contact center automation strategy.<\/span><b><\/b><\/p>\n<h2>\u2705 Collaborate with your agents<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">AI and automation solutions lead to obvious concerns from agents. When you evaluate solutions, focus on those that relieve agents by automating the requests they dislike. Communicate clearly the agent-side benefits of automation and get their input on which parts of their day-to-day responsibilities take up the most time to better serve them.\u00a0<\/span><b><\/b><\/p>\n<h2>\u2705 Upskill your agents<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the biggest benefits agents see from automation is greater career satisfaction. It\u2019s never too early to start thinking about the upskill opportunities and development plans you will be able to offer agents once tier-1 automation is achieved, including certifications and downstream call analysis responsibilities.<\/span><b><\/b><\/p>\n<h2>\u2705 Create a scheduling plan<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These days, there are infinite factors that can make scheduling your contact center staff an impossible task. Forecast your call volumes, taking into account seasonality, and plan your staffing around projected spikes. Begin to also explore contact center automation solutions that can scale with call volumes 24\/7 or act as overflow redundancy.\u00a0<\/span><b><\/b><b><\/b><\/p>\n<h2>\u2705 Analyze why your customers contact support<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Conversations can tell you a lot about your efficiency. Analyze your most common customer requests and identify gaps in how they\u2019re addressed with contact center analytics. Trends like volume spikes and calls that commonly get stuck or misrouted\u00a0 in your IVR are great candidates for automation to cut down on AHTs, abandonment, and misutilized agent time.\u00a0<\/span><b><\/b><\/p>\n<h2>\u2705 Identify use cases that can be automated<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s never too early to start identifying conversations that can be automated. Look for conversations that are low-emotion, low-to-mid complexity, and high-volume. Conversational AI-based automation uses CRM information and other points of connection to authenticate, personalize, and completely resolve these requests with the same speed and quality as human agents.\u00a0<\/span><b><\/b><\/p>\n<h2>\u2705 Don\u2019t forget your customer<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Throughout it all, don\u2019t forget your customer when addressing WFM challenges. Hold times are high, expectations are higher, and today\u2019s customers can only remain empathetic to staffing shortages for so long. There are plenty of agent assist tools and self-service options out there\u00a0\u2013\u00a0but make sure to find a solution that benefits your customer as much as it does your agents.<\/span><b><\/b><\/p>\n<h2>\u2705 Choose the right technology partner<\/h2>\n<p><b><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Contact centers have plenty of options when it comes to automation solutions. Make sure you work with a partner who is experienced in a range of unique contact center use cases and customer personas, and can help you identify the right roadmap with <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.replicant.ai\/roi-calculator\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">forecastable ROI<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.replicant.ai\/resources\/guide\/the-great-resignation-why-your-contact-center-wont-survive-without-automation-2\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-7047\" src=\"https:\/\/www.replicant.ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/TheGreatResignation_2501x469-1024x192.png\" alt=\"Our latest guide, \u201cThe Great Resignation: Why Your Contact Center Won\u2019t Survive without Automation,\u201d provides answers to some of today\u2019s most pressing challenges:\" width=\"1024\" height=\"192\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hiring shortages, high agent turnover, and unpredictable surges in call volumes are just a few&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":1752,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.2 (Yoast SEO v21.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Your Checklist to Survive the Contact Center Labor Crisis | Replicant<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Contact center automation is transforming the way operations managers overcome the labor shortage and increase their workforce management success.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.replicant.com\/blog\/your-checklist-to-survive-the-contact-center-labor-crisis\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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