Editor's Note: Throughout the month of May, we'll be adding the full text of our interviews with the Workforce Management vendors we spoke to. Look for them on the current issue page.

Every call center needs a workforce management system, whether it's a software suite or a set of self-imposed guidelines and a spreadsheet program. Workforce management software is more than just fancy scheduling programs, and it's not just for big call centers. It can help a small center with complicated scheduling needs run smoothly without a lot of costly human intervention, and it can help a big center with high attrition become a happier, more stable environment.

Smaller call centers can have very complicated needs as far as scheduling, forecasting and managing are concerned. When you have fewer resources, and fewer agents doing more tasks, things like skills-based scheduling can be very tricky, and the stakes are much higher.

As ICMI forecasting consultant Dan Rickwalder says, workforce management isn't just software and spreadsheets. "It is a whole process -- it's more than just a process, even, it's really a culture. It's saying that you accept the idea that calls randomly arrive and that you have to plan for them." Managing your workforce is about reducing the chaos and making the call center a more predictable place.

Bill Durr, a principal and consultant at Witness Systems, offers this definition: "Workforce management is the codeword for forecasting and scheduling software in the contact center industry. Specifically, WFM software solutions receive periodic and real time information from ACD systems. Forecasts are then created from historical data. Agent schedules are also produced to align business needs with agent work preferences. Intraday management tools compare the plan with the unfolding reality of the day."

IEX's director of product marketing Paul Leamon adds, "Workforce management does more than just ensure the center is properly staffed. It helps organizations balance cost-driven operational improvements and customerfocused service delivery." And since employees are among the most costly components of a call center, finding the perfect balance of just enough agents to answer the most likely number of calls coming in on a given day can save a business a lot of money.

Brett Williams, senior manager of product management for workforce optimization at Aspect sums it up: "It's about creating efficiencies in the call center, and creating automation. When we say it creates efficiency, it does so by really reducing the number of staff that a call center's going to require to meet or exceed a certain service level goal. Since staff are usually the most expensive resource in the whole call center budget -- usually they can make up anywhere from 60-75% of the budget -- you can see that anything that goes to creating efficiencies with staff is significantly going to impact the bottom line and have a pretty big return on investment."

WHO MAKES WHAT?

Aspect and Concerto, two companies with roots in automatic call distributor (ACD) design, merged last fall. The new, blended company, called Aspect Software, has a line of software called eWorkforce Management which includes the usual forecasting, scheduling, and tracking tools, along with a line of "enhancements," such as tools that enable agents to make and modify their own schedules, sold separately. Aspect has a different suite for outbound call centers called RightForce Workforce Management.

Witness Systems' workforce management software is called Impact 360. Witness, a company with a performance management focus, bought Blue Pumpkin, a company that specialized in workforce management in 2004. The workforce management system is sold as a part of the company's greater workforce optimization suite, which bundles call recording, quality monitoring, elearning, and performance management together in one system, but you can also buy it as a stand-alone. Like other companies in the field, Witness offers peripheral applications for tasks like agent shift bidding and training.

IEX's TotalView workforce management software has a main line called TotalView Central, which has all the vital pieces of workforce management like forecasting, scheduling, change management and multisite tools, and an Advanced Features line that has a vacation and holiday planning tool and an adherence suite among others.

ISC, a thirty year old consulting firm that began offering workforce management software seven years ago, has a suite called Irene. Irene is available as software, or as a hosted system. Add-ons include a training module.

Pipkins offers two systems: Maxima Advantage Vantage Point on the high end, and an affordable, hosted system called WorkforceScheduling. Com. Both use Pipkins' patented Merlang algorithms.

Portage Communications makes three applications targeted at the 10-75 agent call center. Call Center Designer tells you what you'll need to get the service level you want and SimACD tells you what will happen with what you've got. AgentTime is Portage's scheduling application.

Canadian software company Calabrio was known as OdySoft until it officially changed its name to match its flagship product last fall. Calabrio boasts "one-step scheduling."

GMT's workforce management system is called GMT Planet. The Jupiter Edition can schedule every employee -- from agents to janitors. Optional features include the cleverly named Mission Control reader board application. GMT offers an affordable Express version for smaller centers.

Left Bank Solutions' specializes in small and mid-sized call centers. Its Monet Workforce Management System comes in hosted and software versions.

BIG VS. SMALL

Workforce management systems for huge call centers will be a breed apart from those for the smaller center, but the differences between small to large center systems aren't as great as one might think. And just because your center's small doesn't mean you need an entry-level system, says Aspect's Brett Williams. "An entry-level tool is appropriate for a straight-forward, simplistic call center that doesn't have a lot of rules that they need to comply with, as far as its agents' schedules."

Bill Durr adds: "Some entrylevel solutions make the simplifying assumption that agents are interchangeable cogs, all performing at the skill group average. The irony is that the error this introduces into the model is particularly difficult for smaller centers to manage. And, scalability can become an issue. Perhaps the biggest drawback to entry-level solutions is that they have no inherent growth path. I mean this in two senses. First, the center may grow in size. Second, more likely the center management team matures with experience and demands more from the infrastructure."

Paul Leamon says, "Entry-level workforce management systems, by definition, are not as sophisticated or feature rich as high end systems. Therefore, arguably the best option for small centers is to go with a high end system that offers a small center package tailored to their unique requirements -- that way the center can be are assured it will meet their needs today and growth with the business."

Pipkins has a similar approach. Paul Najdzin, Pipkins' sales engineer is skeptical of scaled down versions of big call center systems. "Our approach to the challenge has been to offer the small centers our full featured suite of products on a hosted platform where the clients pay on a monthly subscription for the number of agents that they schedule. This eliminates the need for the capital expenditure for software and hardware."

Calabrio is no different. Product Management VP Guillaume Perron: "Issues experienced by centers are the same in intensity and criticalness, regardless of size. So coming up with a short-changed version of our WFM solution for centers with less than 50 agents doesn't make sense and we've tailored our business offering around that, making sure the ROI is sound and attractive regardless."

SCHEDULING REMOTE AGENTS

Can workforce management systems handle scheduling for virtual call centers and home-based agents? The answer is yes, and most experts will tell you it's crazy to try scheduling off-site agents without a workforce management system. "Solving the staffing and scheduling problem in these environments without fancy software is an exercise in futility," says Bill Durr. "Any center with remote agents or multiple centers doing load balancing or operating fully virtual require WFM solutions."

Paul Leamon says, "With the advent of Internet Protocol technology, it is expected to become more and more commonplace. A number of organizations are already employing work at home strategies using automated workforce management."

The software is the same, Brett Williams points out, but agent management becomes much more important when they aren't all in the same building. Williams says it's important to have tools that provide "the ability for the supervisors or the managers to understand what the agent is doing both on a real-time and historical basis so they can rest assured that the agent is being productive even though they may not be able to physically see that person."