Contact center workforce optimization has two pillars: workforce management (WFM) and quality management (QM).

WFM consists of forecasting, scheduling, and balancing workloads to ensure you have the right people in the right seats at any given time. QM means monitoring, analyzing, and improving agent performance.

Without both, you’ll struggle to meet demand, let alone exceed customer expectations.

Contact center workforce optimization strategies

Before talking about why it matters, it’s important to understand what workforce optimization looks like in reality.

Many will tell you it’s as simple as buying the right software. But that’s not the full picture.

Sure, software can have a significant impact if you know what you’re doing. But you may already be using several WFO strategies without realizing it. And understanding how all of these pieces work together is key to effectively optimizing your workforce.

Some of the most common contact center workforce optimization strategies include:

• Flexible scheduling.
• Demand forecasting.
• Skills-based routing.
• Real-time monitoring.
• Performance management.
• Employee engagement.
• Time tracking.
• Training programs.
• Cross-training opportunities.
• Performance-based incentives.
• Leveraging AI chatbots.
• Hybrid or remote work.
• Customer feedback.
• Analytics and reporting.
• Documentation.

The real power of workforce optimization lies in how these pieces fit together to cut costs, boost performance, and deliver exceptional customer experiences.

For example, training programs, cross-training opportunities, a hybrid work environment, employee engagement tactics, and incentives contribute to a motivated team, which directly translates to better performance.

High-performing agents who harness call center AI get more done while providing faster, top-tier customer service.

With accurate forecasting and flexible scheduling, you can ensure your best agents are there when you need them most while giving them time off to avoid burnout.

In the end, your agents, customers, and bottom line are happier.

Focusing on one or two areas at a time may work well when your contact center is small. Solving the entire puzzle sets you up for growth, protects your team’s wellbeing, and gives you the data you need to continue optimizing over time.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about why it matters.

Benefit 1: Happier and healthier agents

It’s no secret that working in a contact center is challenging. The work itself is a grind and talking to angry customers takes its toll. Being overworked, undertrained, and under never-ending stress exacerbates it all.

When done well, workforce optimization makes their lives easier all around.

It’s more than just boosting performance and efficiency — the right processes can have a real, positive impact on your team’s well-being.

Flexible scheduling allows agents to balance their work and personal lives, making them all the happier at work. Allowing hybrid or remote work takes that a step further.

Combined with accurate forecasting, they don’t have to worry about pushing past their limits because of understaffing or feeling useless if there’s not enough for them to do.

Skills-based call routing ensures they only get calls they can handle.

Ongoing training, cross-training opportunities, and gamification give them tools to grow and opportunities to explore what they enjoy. Plus, real-time monitoring can create a sense of security knowing they don’t have to handle difficult situations alone.

Together, your efforts contribute to lower stress, increased employee satisfaction, and a sense of purpose for your team.

The result? Lower turnover, better performance, and a hyper-engaged workforce.

Benefit 2: A customer experience that exceeds expectations

When your agents are happy and healthy, it shows in their interactions with customers. But full-fledged workforce optimization takes the customer experience to the next level.

Rather than working towards the same customer service goals as everyone else, you’re creating a competitive advantage to set yourself apart.

When done well, you’ll be able to create a seamless customer journey from the first touchpoint — no long wait times, repetitive explanations, or bouncing between departments. Just fast, helpful, and friendly interactions they can’t wait to tell their friends about.

Getting to that level requires a holistic customer service approach.

Skills-based routing ensures customers connect with the right agent, while real-time data and AI-powered tools give agents what they need to provide personalized solutions in no time.

You’ll enjoy higher first-call resolution (FCR) rates, faster response times, an improved Net Promoter Score (NPS), and a boost to other critical metrics. But it goes beyond that.

Analytics and quality assurance make it easy to spot recurring problems, allowing you to prepare your agents ahead of time. You could even set up your IVR system, live chat, and online resources to handle common questions, freeing up agents and allowing callers to help themselves.

With forecasting and flexible scheduling, you’ll be responsive to dynamic demand, too.

Plus, cross-training engaged agents means anyone can hop in to help at any time. You’ll always have the resources you need to handle routine days as well as unexpected spikes.

Do it right and your customers will never know the difference between a slow and busy shift.

As expectations rise, workforce optimization gives you the agility you need to evolve and exceed changing demands. It’s not just about keeping up — it’s about setting a new standard for exceptional service.

Benefit 3: Lower operating costs

Aligning your workforce with real-time demand can help you limit overstaffing during slow periods and scrambling, burning out your agents, or paying overtime to handle surges.

This directly relates to lower labor costs.

It goes beyond staffing levels, though. With the right tools, knowledge, and training, agents are more efficient, reducing average handle times and increasing first-call resolutions.

Combined with automation, AI, and proper integrations, routine tasks, like follow-ups, summaries, and answering common questions, can be handled without a human having to do anything at all.

All of this adds up to handling more inquiries with the resources you already have.

With happier and healthier agents, you’ll also have less turnover, allowing you to cut down on the constant cycle of hiring and training new staff.

Lower recruitment and hiring costs alone can have a major impact on your bottom line.

Benefit 4: Streamlined resource management

So far, we’ve talked about benefits for agents, customers, and business owners. This one’s all about managers and supervisors.

First and foremost, workforce optimization transforms the often chaotic world of resource management into a strategic, data-driven process. No more guesswork, last minute scrambles, or watching service quality plummet during busy hours.

With advanced forecasting tools, they can easily anticipate volume and staffing needs with remarkable accuracy.

These tools work by gathering data on how teams spend their time. This goes beyond attending to customers — you’ll be able to see how much time employees spend in meetings, taking coffee breaks, doing training, and attending events.

From there, it leverages usage data, like the average number of inquiries you get, peak times, how long it takes to handle an inquiry, and variations from agent to agent.

It then estimates demand and helps you build a schedule to meet it.

Some tools even include real-time resource management, allowing supervisors to reassign team members to different activities during slow or peak periods.

Beyond that, they can optimize shifts around skill-sets, agent preferences, and scheduled time off to ensure there’s always someone around to help.

This foresight allows for proactive planning rather than reactive problem-solving.

Supervisors can also allocate resources to special projects, meetings, and training without having to worry about compromising day-to-day operations.

Real-time monitoring and analytics give supervisors unprecedented visibility into their team’s performance, too. They’ll be able to spot trends, identify bottlenecks, and make data-driven decisions without having to wait for end-of-month reports to see how things are going.

Overall, workforce optimization saves time for management–instead of putting out fires, they can focus on strategy, problem-solving, coaching, and agent development.

Benefit 5: Scalability and flexibility

Scaling is difficult, no matter the industry you’re in. Proper workforce optimization sets you up to handle up or down scaling at any time.

Whether that means preparing for holiday season with 3x volume, off season with a third of your usual demand, launching a new product, or entering a new market, you’ll have all the tools and processes you need to handle it with ease.

Plus, the right forecasting and scheduling tools aid in making these crucial workforce decisions.

However, it’s not just about higher volumes. It’s also about adapting to customer needs and shifting market conditions. Workforce optimization gives you the flexibility to shift resources, adjust schedules, and reallocate skills to solve these new challenges.

Paired with cloud-based software that lets you add and remove seats in a click, you’ll have no problem meeting demand as you grow.

With strong quality management in place, you’ll maintain service level. Whether you’re handling 100 calls a day or 10,000, each customer will get the attention they deserve.

Contact center workforce optimization software

There are multiple ways to get all of the workforce optimization tools you need, including bundled with contact center software or as standalone tools you integrate together.

Most enterprise-grade contact center solutions, like RingCentral and Nextiva, offer workforce optimization tools. This the easiest option if you’re already using (or plan to use) contact center software that has it.

The biggest benefit is seamless integration with the software your agents already use.

However, you likely won’t get as many features or capabilities. And it’ll be a hassle if you decide to switch contact center platforms.

If you want the absolute best-of-breed tools for part of workforce optimization, standalone tools, like When I Work for scheduling or Leapsome for employee engagement, is an excellent, albeit expensive, way to go. You’ll be able to choose which tool suits your needs, tailor it to your business, and easily replace individual pieces if your needs change.

With that said, it’s more expensive and integration can be complex, especially if there are compatibility issues. You’ll likely need IT resources to manage your system.