Do Agents Need to Be Scheduled?Do Agents Need to Be Scheduled?

Many contact center supervisors consider the idea of a scheduleless contact center as blasphemous. Assuming agents will just work is along the lines of letting the inmates run the asylum.

But a quick look at Uber, the ride-hailing company, tells us that we should perhaps view the age-old tradition of scheduling as optional rather than core. Uber manages to maintain an average pickup time of less than five minutes in 412 cities across 55 countries, including most U.S. cities with populations of 25,000 or higher -- and it does so without any schedules.

Bill Gurley, general partner at Benchmark Capital, provides some details into Uber's lack of scheduling in a recent post. I couldn't help but think that many of these benefits apply to contact centers as well.

Uber drivers, or "driver-partners," unilaterally decide when and where they want to work. Uber accomplishes this fascinating achievement with the assistance of semi-automated and algorithmic management systems. And that's what brings me to the contact center.

What Makes Scheduling So Complex?
Let's look at the scheduling conundrum that many supervisors need to manage. Scheduling is so complex because of the number of variables that need to be optimized. It's so complex that an entire industry is associated with contact center scheduling, and scheduling is often a core component of workforce management software.

First, are the hours of operation, which don't typically align with normal 40-hour-per-week shifts. There's the anticipated load, or call volume, which has multiple peak periods in a day and may or may not be similar to the previous week's load. There are quality-of-service metrics, such as average speed to answer. Schedules need to address different skills as well as agent preferences and seniority -- yet be responsive to personal issues such as vacations or medical leave. These are just some of the variables. The list goes on, as do the granular details, such as the need to schedule lunch breaks.

However, managing physical transportation on a global basis should be more complex than routing calls. Uber, for example, has to deal with actual physical locations. A spike in demand in one region cannot overflow to a different physical region. Also, service time per ride varies widely and unpredictably.

On the other hand, Uber and contact centers share quite a bit in common. Both heavily monitor their operators while working. While Uber can see things like routes, speed, and instant feedback performance, contact centers supervisors have even more "visibility." Supervisors can see things like outcomes and, thanks to newer speech analytics, can even monitor sentiment.

Potential Benefit: Exponentially Larger Workforce
Once we get our heads around a scheduleless possibility, we can see a lot of potential benefit to the approach. Uber tapped into a huge neglected and willing workforce. A lot of Uber drivers are people who are unavailable for or uninterested in full-time employment.

Two common examples are students who can only work between classes or stay-at-home moms who may only be available for a few hours per day during school hours. It's also a great option for retired people who still want (or need) to work. A few hours may seem trivial, but peak demand times vary across time zones.

It's important to note that Uber has attracted drivers generally across cities, towns, and countries. It's not as if all of these people simply had no other alternative -- they voluntarily chose Uber, and may choose other ad-hoc employers as they become available.

A huge benefit of the modern contact center is that agents can work from anywhere. For employers, speech and noise analytics can quickly identify unacceptable situations such as barking, slurred speech, or even anger. Few, if any, jobs have so many tools for monitoring of remote personnel.

Continue to next page: Meeting new requirements and making scheduleless work

Continued from previous page

Meeting a New Array of Requirements
Admittedly, remote, scheduleless work is a bit of a radical concept for contact centers, and one that won't take hold overnight. However, the tech and employment environments have changed, so it deserves a look. Let's examine some of the obvious objections and requirements.

The most consistently heard objection is security. Agents often require access to confidential personal information, so companies argue that a freelance economy simply isn't an option. But in fact, employment model and location are separate from confidentiality. If a contact center can vet agents as on-site employees, they can vet them as remote contractors.

The second big objection is economies of scale. Sure, Uber can do this, but how can a single contact center attract enough agents for this model to work? Here, note that Uber was once small and is still expanding into new markets.

It's also important to note that scheduleless is not an all-or-none proposition. For example, a contact center may operate with a core scheduled staff, applying a scheduleless model for capacity swings. A scheduleless approach could also serve as a solution to retain talented agents who might otherwise retire or opt for part-time employment. Scheduling tools aren't eliminated, but a scheduleless model would dramatically simplify the functionality required of them.

Putting the Pieces Together: Making Scheduleless Work
A few must-haves make a scheduleless environment work. The potential pool of agents offers a clear and simple way to monitor load (or opportunity). Like Uber, this would be a pay-per-service model. Uber drivers don't get paid for being available, but for serving customers. A contact center could easily communicate service load via an app or even text messaging.

Uber also attempts to influence the available supply of drivers with its surge pricing model. The company pays more to drivers when demand increases in order to attract more drivers to become available. This too could be accomplished with contact center agents.

Uber has clear requirements for onboarding, and an effective training program. Uber requires drivers to have a valid license, pass a background test, and have an acceptable vehicle with insurance. It handles most of its onboarding and training through automated tools.

A contact center would likely require agents to pass an on-demand screening and training process. Speech technologies can evaluate clarity and language skills. On-demand training modules train, track, and test agent skills.

A subtle but critical aspect of Uber's model is rapid payment. Driver-partners get paid soon after completing the job. In an on-demand model, there's little tolerance for the archaic "week in arrears every two weeks."

Regarding equipment, like Uber, it would be reasonable that call-center contractors provide their own equipment and bandwidth. This likely means Web-based agent applications for the contact center. Regardless of who pays for it, an at-home agent may only need a Chromebook and headset. The contact center could even offer this equipment under a rental program. That's an investment of less than $500 -- considerably less than a reliable sedan.

Another interesting twist could be the development of agent-as-a-service offerings from contact center providers. In this case, the provider itself creates a global network of on-demand agents. The service not only could include training and vetting, but also even the required seats and other system resources -- all wrapped up as an OpEx service.

The contact center market is rapidly moving toward cloud-delivered services. There's an opportunity to do more than revise the deployment model. The limiting factor in the contact center isn't technology, but mindset. We need to reimagine interactions and free ourselves from the cost containment goals that have frustrated so many.

The technology available allows open-minded staff to re-explore possibilities to achieve desired outcomes. There will be, as there always are, tons of objections to overcome -- training, supervision, data privacy, and more. But if they can be overcome in a traditional contact center, they can be overcome in a modern environment as well.

Changes to customer engagement are coming, and they will happen quicker than many expect. It took Uber just a few years to hire more than three million driver-partners. It took Walmart about 55 years to do the equivalent.

Dave Michels is a contributing editor and analyst at TalkingPointz.

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