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In this series we will discuss Contact Center industry trends and best practices, as well as sharing success stories and pain points with some of the most innovative professionals in the industry. Join us as we learn and grow together in order to provide world class customer service to each and every one of our clients.
00:00:01:13 - 00:00:04:16
Unknown
Hey everyone, it's Dave Hoekstra product. Evangelistic
00:00:04:16 - 00:00:29:10
Unknown
at Calabrio. And we have a bit of a special episode today because, Calabria just announced a pretty revolutionary approach to workforce management. And we want to talk about it. We want to make sure that the information gets out there and spend a little time discussing what it is. And I am very, very fortunate to have a very special guest with me today.
00:00:29:12 - 00:00:48:00
Unknown
Someone I would consider a good friend. Someone I've worked with for a really long time. And and he also happens to be my boss. So I'm on my best behavior here today, but, I'm joined with, my, my friend and cohort, Magnus Geverts, our VP of product marketing here. And, I couldn't be more excited. It's the first time he's been on the podcast with me.
00:00:48:00 - 00:01:06:21
Unknown
And, it's not only, is one of my favorite Swedes, but also has a Dutch last name like myself, and that makes me even more excited. So, Magnus, welcome to the podcast. And I know we have some exciting things to talk about. Yeah. Thanks, Dave, and good to be inside the podcast for the first time as well.
00:01:06:22 - 00:01:34:00
Unknown
Thank you for having me. The, Yeah, yeah, super exciting stuff. We're coming out from our collaborative, game connect the Connect C3, and where we met customers and announced the workforce intelligence, for which is the next generation of workforce management solutions, workforce intelligence. So that's going to be a lot of fun to, to get out there and talk about.
00:01:34:05 - 00:02:01:19
Unknown
And I definitely want to talk about, kind of what it does, why it does, you know, what's what's cool about it. But I think it's important before we do that, should we talk a little bit about why, why, why, why did WFM need an evolution? So, I kind of want to go back. You've. So. Yeah, one of my favorite facts about you, Magnus, is that, this WFM going back into your telly updates is the only job you've ever had.
00:02:01:19 - 00:02:31:16
Unknown
Correct? Yeah, I'm still on my first. Yeah. So on your first. And so that's it's been a good solid 26, 27 years at least. And, so what it, what it look like when you got rolling now. So I've had a fantastic journey over those I think it's close to 28 years now. Speaking to so many different context centers, listening to their different workforce management requirements.
00:02:31:19 - 00:02:52:08
Unknown
Of course, back in those days, the contact center was completely different. It was a call center. It was telephony. It was, you know, quite, it was a challenge, but it was still easier to predict demand. It didn't vary that much. You you schedule people from a top down view, and then you were kind of done with it.
00:02:52:11 - 00:03:22:02
Unknown
And if you fast forward to today, where we have so many different channels, we have phone, of course, but all the digital channels, we have a much higher volatility. We have employees who actually demand to be heard, and we also the contact center itself has moved from being more of a cost center in to being, differentiator for customer service for, for the enterprise.
00:03:22:04 - 00:04:07:10
Unknown
So completely different setup today and still most of the work for the robust workforce management solutions in the market today was designed for that old setup. So we have, of course, evolved, Calabria, Calabria workforce management over time. So things like self scheduling has been immensely popular in the in the last years. But as a started to accelerate and this new technology became available to us, what we did was to we took a step back and said, okay, let's reimagine what workforce management could be.
00:04:07:13 - 00:04:46:06
Unknown
And what we really need now and in the future. And so we did, we set out on a journey to, reimagine workforce management, putting AI at the core of the workforce management application. And I like to think of the result as something that's more living, breathing, the type of workforce management that always collect signals from everywhere and automatically adjusts, learns and adopts, and so you can basically say the the main outcome is to be proactive instead of being reactive.
00:04:46:08 - 00:05:05:18
Unknown
Right. And that's always been the goal. Right. Is you know, originally WFM was hey, hey, let's help predict these so you can be ready for them. And now what we're seeing is a much more kind of real time, like you said, living and breathing as opposed to plan for the best. What? Know what plan for the worst, hope for the best.
00:05:05:18 - 00:05:25:13
Unknown
Right. And that's that's always been the. So one of the things that I, you know, we've talked a lot about AI in the last, you know, a couple of years. And one of the things we consistently here is AI's great. But it seems like everybody's just throwing it in everywhere and not really having a great plan for what it does.
00:05:25:21 - 00:05:52:20
Unknown
And so what I'd like to do is so let's let's kind of get down to some specifics. When we talk about workforce intelligence, what is what what are we exactly doing to enhance that. Like what does it actually do. Let's let's start there. Yeah. So it's what we're trying to do is we're not bolting it on. We're putting out the core to all the time, have an updated forecast all the time.
00:05:52:26 - 00:06:24:27
Unknown
Watch out for things that happen to be able to provide, anyone from agents to intraday managers with real time information to be able to quickly take actions. I think a good example of that is, a new functionality for intraday, management, where in the past, what you would do this as a real time analyst would be to set and monitor multiple different screens.
00:06:24:27 - 00:06:47:11
Unknown
Is a is everything looking okay? And then you'd have to go away and you'd have to catch up. And so difficult to keep track of and find when there are deviations. And then if you found a deviation, you would try to figure out, okay, what can I do about this? You'd have to check a number of different things.
00:06:47:13 - 00:07:14:19
Unknown
So what we do now is we automate, we automate all of that. So we alert the, intraday analyst if something is about to go wrong, alert me. But also, as I get the alert, I get, suggestions on what can I do to mitigate it. Could be, for example, looks like we're understaffed, in the afternoon.
00:07:14:19 - 00:07:41:13
Unknown
Okay, maybe pull some people out from, a training session to cover. That could be one, one, one thing that the system would suggest. So what you do as an entry manager would be more to, monitor if, or you'd, you'd get the alerts and you choose what action to, to take. And of course you will be able to automate those actions.
00:07:41:13 - 00:08:08:26
Unknown
The most common actions, less risky actions you may want to put on complete autopilot. Next time the the application will just do them for you without even alerting you first. Right? So it's, it's kind of taking the actions that a, a, human would do, but, automating it to the point where that decision making process becomes significantly more proactive as opposed to reactive.
00:08:08:26 - 00:08:32:00
Unknown
Right? It's like, hey, service levels dropping in this particular skill. What would you like to do? And by the way, would you like to automate that? Yeah. So and, and we also know our users, resource planners, they are they often want to keep in control. So we, we don't really believe in even if the application can do it.
00:08:32:00 - 00:08:35:04
Unknown
We don't believe in automation from day one.
00:08:35:04 - 00:08:54:12
Unknown
yeah, us workhorse managers don't trust anything. I know, I know from my experience. Yeah. Yeah. We're very we're very reluctant to allow the system to kind of run with things and just let things happen behind the scenes. And we've seen that more. So building that trust is a really important part of it. But now we're calling this predictive intraday actions.
00:08:54:12 - 00:09:16:15
Unknown
Right. And I know that's only one part of this. What there are some other things that we've introduced as well as part of WFC. Yeah, absolutely. So what has already been out there for some time is the, agent assist functionality to help the agent with anything they want to to do when it comes to their schedule.
00:09:16:15 - 00:09:55:02
Unknown
So it could be to request over time or, could be to, look at, vacation time when they can take time off, etc.. Yeah. And and traditionally, in the collaborative WFM that has been done in, in like a calendar view where you, you sort of work in that calendar view. But in this case, now what we're doing is we're using a genetic AI and natural language to provide a, similar to ChatGPT, the T type of experience, which is also what we see with agents.
00:09:55:02 - 00:10:20:19
Unknown
They are so, so used now to using chat tools in their everyday life. So interacting with, with the application becomes much easier for them. Right. And so let's, let's do a real world example here. Right. Like so you said and workforce management I as an agent I would go and I'd click this button, I would select this day I would type in a little bit of information and then hit submit and then wait.
00:10:20:24 - 00:10:37:23
Unknown
Right. But with the new functionality it's more of a conversation like, imagine I would like back in the days when we all used to be in the same office as each other, right? I'd be sitting there in an agent, would pop their head around the corner and say, hey, can I have next Thursday off? And I'd say, yeah, you can, right?
00:10:37:23 - 00:11:00:07
Unknown
That's the kind of goal we're trying to get to, right? Is being able to have a lot more natural language conversation to kind of reduce the barrier to entry, make things easier for these agents, but also spending a lot less time doing the same tools. It's really a really good way of, of explaining it. And exactly what you said now is what the application the agent assessed.
00:11:00:07 - 00:11:26:05
Unknown
Will I understand the process, come back with, with a solution for you? And I haven't even done it in my native language. So Swedish. So it supports all different languages and yeah, it's all right. So in Swedish, because let's be honest, most of our data is is in English, in Swedish. How would you say, hey boss, can I have next Thursday off, please?
00:11:26:08 - 00:11:59:25
Unknown
Hey, thank you for the toaster. There you go. So and you'd say yes. Right. And of course I would say. I'd say all right. No. Right. And so this is the goal, right? The goal is. And what I love about this is that we. I'm sick to death of hearing it. You know, one of my. I saw a cartoon on LinkedIn, the other day, and it was, it was like the, you know, the call and response from from a crowd to a speaker, and they're like the speakers, like, what do we want?
00:11:59:25 - 00:12:22:18
Unknown
And they're like, I and they're like, where do we want it right now? And then what do we want it to do? And the crowd is like, we don't know. And, and and that seems to be, where a little bit more where we're at. Right. With AI. What I love about this is that we're, we're, we're attacking specific things that can actually be accomplished fairly easily that people want.
00:12:22:21 - 00:12:55:07
Unknown
And and we're now this is kind of it. So yeah I agree with that. The so some different things we're doing with AI. We're using it purposefully to the first example there within today actions was to speed things up. Sometimes in intraday you don't even manage to change things because things happen so fast that speed things up for, our users, for the, for the agent, it's more about removing friction.
00:12:55:07 - 00:13:22:03
Unknown
Make it super easy for them to, to do this, time of requests or whatever it may, may be to empower them to actually do it. And in the background, of course, the same kind of the, guardrails that we have in place in, in the user interface, it's available to make sure that whatever change is happening is improving service levels, etc., etc..
00:13:22:05 - 00:13:52:20
Unknown
And I think that to me, as someone who has done this process in the real world, in real life, that is it. It underscores the importance of the fundamentals of workforce management. And then and therefore workforce intelligence. Right. You still have to have a really good forecast. You still have to have a really good schedule. You still have to have it really good building blocks of this, that, that do that.
00:13:52:20 - 00:14:23:01
Unknown
And I think speaking of kind of that, that intraday, the forecast piece where we're doing one more piece around that as well. Correct. Yeah. Yes. We are. Absolutely. So there there is several different things in, in the intraday re forecasting to get to this living breathing type of application. We talked about. So we're, we're starting with the egg kind of simple intraday re forecasting driven by the user.
00:14:23:03 - 00:14:58:23
Unknown
And what's and coming to to come later this year is a in driven intraday re forecasting which will look at many many more signals. And you can do yourself to give you suggestions on how to reshape your your forecast. And I think that's the key. Right. When we talk about the the textbook definition of a generic I, it's kind of looking at multiple things and pulling them together in the same process that maybe a human would do and kind of look and that's that to me is really important.
00:14:58:23 - 00:15:24:02
Unknown
Right? The, the there are there are some key things that I get asked a lot about in workforce management. Right. And and one of those things is re forecasting. Right at the end of the day, a good workforce manager, a good talented human being, the the only thing that matters is getting that forecast right. Because if a forecast is right and everything else falls into place.
00:15:24:04 - 00:15:43:23
Unknown
But what I tell people all the time is we're inherently trying to predict the unpredictable, and that is human behavior. You can't predict when someone is going to truly pick up the phone and dial your contact center, or they're going to sit down and chat, or they're about to, and then they pull away, and then people come and yell at us and say, why didn't you hit forecast this way?
00:15:43:29 - 00:16:11:25
Unknown
Right. So things do change. So being able to dynamically re forecast kind of throughout the day and make make sure that those numbers are accurate. That's kind of the baseline measure of success in a in a really good workforce management strategy. Yeah totally. And you meet a lot of customers and so do I. And I have not yet come across any workforce management team that say we are too many in our team.
00:16:11:28 - 00:16:39:09
Unknown
So. Right. This is, so quite stressful job. There is lots of different things going on. So what we're trying to do is make life easier by making information accessible faster, making preparing the information to make it easier to to make decisions quicker. And, and we're also, many of these workforce management teams, they, they recruit new people.
00:16:39:09 - 00:17:06:26
Unknown
They need to get up to speed on on what is workforce management, maybe, but also the application. So what we we will be able to do with and I we're building out is to, help the junior workforce manager big with expertise from the senior workforce manager. So we get them up to speed quicker. And I think that would be, liked by our, our customers.
00:17:06:26 - 00:17:39:21
Unknown
Yes. You know, we we joke about this a lot. Is not an easy practice to get into. Right. And, and we want people to kind of learn and manage. But the barrier to entry has always been, I don't want to say complicated software, but complicated processes within software. Right? You do need to build out things like shift bags and contracts and start and stop times and break times and lunch times, and that that process is a slow build over time.
00:17:39:27 - 00:17:57:17
Unknown
And anything we can do to kind of shrink the amount of time it takes for someone to get proficient and then become an expert in this particular area. I think that's great. And I think, you know, looking long term, some of the cool things that WFA is going to bring to the table, that's a really big benefit.
00:17:57:20 - 00:18:19:23
Unknown
It's not a specific benefit. It's not like, hey, what feature are you bringing to the table? But it is something that makes will make a lot of people's jobs a lot easier to do. And that's something that I'm really excited about. Totally getting over that initial hurdle. And that's something where we're having workforce intelligence for the supervisor, like a supervisor assist.
00:18:19:25 - 00:18:44:18
Unknown
So regardless what application you are using, if you need to go in and you need to find reports or date, it's always a little bit difficult in the beginning. It's so much easier if you can just ask, your application and like you do with Chatty Petite. How many people do I have sick, today, and sort of interact with, with the application in that way.
00:18:44:18 - 00:19:07:12
Unknown
And that is enabled by this. That's that's awesome. And I know there there are tons of other cool things outside of workforce management that Calabria is bringing to the table that I'm, I'm really excited about beyond that. But this WFA announcement, I think it's going to be a huge, shift in the way companies approach their workforce management strategy.
00:19:07:14 - 00:19:32:04
Unknown
And honestly, the beauty of us talking about the future is and this is what I've been talking to people about for a while, is the lines between traditional workforce management and other contact center kind of functions are starting to really blur, right? Yeah. Really started. You know, it's no longer like, hey, your WFM team never talks to your analytics team, right?
00:19:32:11 - 00:19:58:03
Unknown
It's starting to become one in the same. And that's where it's going to get really fun. It's like you said, when I can start to ask questions of the of the software, like, hey, why was I under forecast yesterday and have it, have it be able to grab data from different areas? Right. That's exciting. Yeah, totally. And really used to date, that is available, and not have it siloed for workforce management or quality management.
00:19:58:03 - 00:20:25:27
Unknown
You look at all the data together, and your example that you have there with the old saying in, in intraday management to be able to understand why and why are volumes increasing. Why is handling time increasing. So we know the root cause and can take action. And that is enabled now with, with bringing in conversation intelligence data into the workforce management application.
00:20:26:00 - 00:20:48:23
Unknown
Yeah. It's it's so exciting. And that's what I mean is, is like, it may be in five years we won't have WFM departments. We'll just have I don't even know what we'll call them. We'll just call them contact center data guys that that just find stuff right. And answer questions because the silos are breaking down. That's really exciting.
00:20:48:23 - 00:21:12:24
Unknown
And WFP is going to lead the charge in that. It's really to me, it really comes back to performance management of everything in your contact center. So performance in terms of the humans, have we evolved? But also the more the digital channels, how do we manage performance for them and then bringing them both, together, of course.
00:21:12:26 - 00:21:32:12
Unknown
Yeah. So three exciting times. I know. It's very cool. Well, I know that we could probably talk about this forever. But there are so many cool things, lots of great announcements. So, if you're listening to this and you want to know more, just, check out collaboration.com. For those of you that are current customers, you can check out the Success Center.
00:21:32:17 - 00:21:50:29
Unknown
They get a lot of good information on this. We're going to be there's a real media blitz that's happening with with a lot of this information. And we're super excited. We're super proud of our of our product team and our marketing team and the groups that are responsible for getting this out there yourself included. So, big thank you to to join me.
00:21:50:29 - 00:22:22:23
Unknown
I'm glad you finally got a chance to to pop on the podcast here and spend some time with me, but, we, we're really, really excited about this. And if you have questions or you want to know more, there's a lot of great information out there that we would be happy to share. So keep your eye on, collaborator.com and various other media sources, because Wfie is here and we are very, very excited to get it into the hands of our customers and, really find out what you guys can do with it and, and how it's going to benefit your contact centers and your approach going forward.
00:22:22:23 - 00:22:45:07
Unknown
So, Magnus, thanks for joining me. Really appreciate it. Thank you Dave. Yeah, absolutely. And thanks to everybody. Will be, talking to you soon, but, but thanks for this. A special edition of Working Smarter from Calabria. I really appreciate it. You guys have a great rest of your day, and, let us know if you're interested in WiFi or anything else, or even want to talk to us about how it impacted your life.
00:22:45:07 - 00:22:50:27
Unknown
Love to hear it. So take some time to let us know. And, we'll be talking to you soon. Thanks, everybody.