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Adherence to Schedule

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Market research 04 12
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What is adherence to schedule in a call center?

The degree to which call center agents stick to their allocated schedules is known as adherence to schedule. It is usually measured as a percentage. Staffing is a huge expense for a contact center, usually due to the sheer volume of calls they have to deal with every day. It is essential for supervisors and call center management to get high levels of productivity from their staff. Schedule adherence is an important factor in determining the ROI from your agents. 

01

Why is Adherence to schedule important?

Adherence to schedule should be a key consideration for call centers of any size or scale. There are many points throughout the day with productivity losses. There can be due to systemic inefficiencies, poor agent performance or some other external factors. 

Agents usually work in shifts, and schedule adherence can help minimize productivity losses between shifts. Adherence also needs to factor in breaks and external situations. Were this scenario for a single agent it would not be a problem, but when it happens for hundreds of agents within a single day it is a factor that needs to be dealt with.

It is essential for contact centers to implement a program to track adherence to schedule.

Manually keeping track of schedule adherence can be an incredibly time consuming affair and prone to error as well. Call center telephony solutions like Voxco’s can help track and manage agent performance with ease. An agent’s adherence to schedule can be monitored and in real time, with supervisors having the ability to make changes seamlessly.

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02

Improving adherence to schedule in a call center

Imbibe adherence into employee goals

  • Employee goals and schedules need to be centered around meeting their adherence goals. This helps drive accountability within your organization. Adherence to schedules can also form a part of managers and supervisors’ commission structure. Setting adherence goals emphasizes its value within the organization.

Improve communication within the organization

  • Roles, responsibilities and timeliness need to be communicated within the team. The importance of adherence to schedule must be drilled into each employee. However this needs to be a conversation, not a diktat. Agent considerations need to be taken into account, and a balance needs to be made.

Leverage call center productivity enhancing tools

  • After making sure your internal communication on schedule adherence is on the same page within your call center, you need to equip your employees with the right tools for the job. Telephony solutions which include CATI and IVR tools can go a long way in improving agent productivity in your call center. Dashboards which provide your agents with useful information about their caller can help save a lot of time over the day, doing away with the need for them to ask basic identifying questions again and again.
  • Adherence to schedule extends to remote agents as well. Virtual call center software like Voxco can allow for easy schedule adherence even with your agents spread across the world.

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03

Enhancing contact center productivity with Voxco’s telephony solutions

Agents need to have the right set of tools on hand which can help boost productivity levels at the workplace. The following features should definitely be a part of your list when considering telephony solutions. 

Automatic Call distributor

Agent idle time is a big conundrum from most call centers. Leveraging an Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) will go a long way in improving productivity. ACDs can help route calls more effectively, transferring incoming calls only to those agents who are

  • Idle
  • Qualified to deal with the issue at hand
  • Experienced

Monitoring tools

Supervisors need to know what’s going on in their department. Call center dashboards from Voxco can allow supervisors to monitor and provide them with insights into how their agents are performing on a convenient dashboard. Voxco allows supervisors to listen in to ongoing calls as well, allowing them to take over if needed.

Coaching facilities

Voxco’s call monitoring software includes several features which can help supervisors coach agents in real-time. This allows improving agent skills and in turn, productivity over time. Listen mode allows supervisors to listen to a session in progress without the agent or the caller aware of their presence. Whisper mode allows supervisors to talk and guide agents while they’re in the call, with the caller being unaware that a supervisor is present.

04

Can adherence to schedule help in research?

Yes it can! Large scale surveys using IVR and/or CATI software can be leveraged to conduct surveys that uncover insights. Telephony solutions allow researchers to reach almost any demographic for feedback. 

Adherence to schedule ensures that your research project stays on track, and gets the right insights.

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05

FAQs

It is a metric which specifies whether or not your contact center agents are adhering to the schedules they have been assigned

Schedule adherence can be measured by taking the total time an agent in your call center is available and dividing it by the time they are scheduled to work for. It is expressed as a percentage.

Yes it does. Adhering to a schedule ensures that your research projects stay on course, and that your interviewers are using their time productively.

Voxco provides a large range of telephony solutions which help monitor and improve agent productivity, and helps them adhere to their schedules.

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Want to know how to increase your survey response rates?

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