variety of work, and they can shift between different types of work as demands and priorities change throughout the day as customer needs come in," Palocsik says.
Going Digital Doesn't Have to Be Painful
With the rise of digital customer service, consumers may prefer using email, online systems, and live chat to submit orders rather to discussions in a front-line environment. However, Palocsik says that many times, online forms or email get queued up and can only be addressed when an employee has the capacity to do so. Additionally, thanks to different levels and increasing expectations from customers, it has become more difficult to juggle work and provide guidance to employees about work that needs to be attacked first.
"All of a sudden, work is about to expire, so oftentimes employees have to do a fire drill to try to get everything done to meet customer expectations," Palocsik says. "That can mean overtime, and it creates extra stress in the back office and...can also lead to errors."
To solve that issue, Verint Work Allocation Manager has configurable business rules that automatically prioritize work and take into account skills and availability. This differs from standard routing systems, Palocsik says, which route work to employees based on skills and predefined business rules, but don't look at employee availability. The goal, Palocsik says, is to eliminate the need for the first call into a contact center at all.
"It's not just a first contact resolution; it happens before you even have that first call," she says. "Providing tools to enable blended teams to prioritize work and do the right work in the right timeline can really help improve customer service."
Managers Get Help Too
The solution not only helps remove any guesswork, Palocsik says, but reduces manual work that managers have to carry out. Part of that involves averting escalation and crisis management.
"By combining [capabilities] in the front office and back office, you won't have someone who's frustrated and asks to speak to a manager about why something wasn't resolved the first time they requested assistance. Verint Work Allocation Manager reduces the manual work that a lot of managers had to do in the past," Palocsik says. "It also lets managers monitor work completion and the amount of pending work so that they can proactively reassign work or make other changes."
Verint Work Allocation Manager is part of the Verint Customer Engagement Optimization platform that combines workforce optimization, engagement management from Kana, and voice-of-the-customer analytics.
"Being able to improve every interaction with the customer, optimizing the workforce, and also improving processes along the way helps to improve customer engagement and deliver better customer service," Palocsik says.