In a nutshell, Parallel capacity agents can be created by letting all your agents keep their work from home hardware/kits, even if, let’s say, the majority come back to at site desks. The basic concept is to move to UBER style scheduling, AKA flex scheduling. Many orgs have had an issue doing this as most of us are used to that camel hump style scheduling. But, typically, all agents want (7am-3pm, 8am-4pm, and 9am-5pm), and we know there is less of an appetite for EVE and weekends shifts. So, if they became “Parallel Capacity Agents” they could jump on during peak periods from home and get paid a set premium as supposed to things like 2X OT, 3X OT, etc. The advantage to the agents, of course, is they can pick up hours shifts and save on transportations costs, parking, daycare costs, etc...
Pros of “Parallel Capacity Agents”
Less office space rental/lease fees.
More employee satisfaction (Less cost to agents getting to work) to do 2-3 hours of OT.
You can literally get up to double your FTE amounts during peak periods and weekends if a premium is offered or doing a product launch / Media issue/ or peak sales periods like Black Friday or Cyber Monday.
Works well in a FLEX schedule model.
Work well in an OMNI Channel model.
Camel hump be gone! 🐫 you can flex in agents in those AM and EVE spikes or on weekends.
FTE OT requests for special events and launches can be made well in advance and planned via the FLEX uber style (We tell you what we need); you just pick it up type shifts.
If you had 1000 FTE as an example and 70% came back onsite (30% will be WFH), but the 100% will have WFH kits… making them “Parallel Capacity Agents” instead of having only 30% flex staffing, you have 100%.
Info-structure is already in place (as we can see with this WFH pandemic issue), and you can subsidize your agent’s internet costs as well.
There is no need to contract 3rd party/outsourcers to meet EVE or weekends demands.
No need or a reduced amount of seasonal hiring (Less training cost/ Less seasonal attrition)You can handle volumes easily in excess of your (YOY) year over year base. For example, YOY contact volume would be based on contact rate % and your customer base and scrubbed out anomalies and events non-reoccurring, etc.
Fewer load issues, less absenteeism, and also can help agents stay at home when sick (Reduce virus/cold spread).
WFH kits investment has already been made. You can assign each unit to each employee ID and make it part of the IT intake process/Have mobile techs come to the agent’s home to fix any issue that cannot be fixed remotely.
Check out the weWFM Podcast on Apple or Spotify
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3J5gsJh
Apple: https://apple.co/3HskI58
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