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Knowlagent's RightTime Turns Idle Time into Productive Time, Improving Contact Center Efficiency

By Amanda Ciccatelli, TMCnet Web Editor

After years and years of doing things the exact same way in contact centers, new technology is enabling drastic improvements in service delivery and in turn is reducing agent downtime.

It makes sense to have a team of agents dedicated to handling customer inquiries, but just because they are trained agents does not mean that they shouldn’t be used to handling other work activities when call volume is low. Even in the most efficiently staffed contact centers, there will be downtime due to variability in the rate of calls. This downtime is a costly waste of highly trained and valuable resources for enterprises, and frustrating for agents who prefer to be kept busy.  

Now, contact centers are putting their agents to work during idle time by using workflow-enabled applications to identify agent downtime and deliver work items to fill those idle periods, speeding up and reducing the cost of processing.

Recently, Knowlagent, a provider of an intraday management solution for call center agents, has unveiled its RightTime enabled integration with Siemens Enterprise Communications (News - Alert) OpenScape Cloud Contact Center.

RightTime works with the Siemens Enterprise Communications cloud-based ACD software solution to respond to changes in call volume and transform agent idle time into Active Wait Time for agents to complete important activities.

"The average agent spends 11 percent of his or her day in unproductive idle time, simply waiting for the next call," said Matt McConnell, Knowlagent CEO, in a statement. "By integrating with RightTime, the Siemens Enterprise (News - Alert) Communications OpenSpace ACD enables its customers to turn idle time into productive time that improves the efficiency of the call center.”

RightTime aggregates small increments of downtime in the call center across the entire agent population to create productive sessions to complete off-phone activities. It delivers these activities, which can include anything from one-on-one coaching and ongoing training to back office work, to the agent desktop while monitoring ACD metrics to ensure that service levels are maintained.

Additionally, activity queues can be prioritized, ensuring that agents complete the important work first, as well as customized to fit individual agents' needs. Call centers using this type of integration have experienced significant results including:

• One customer increased throughput of training delivery by 400 percent
• Another customer implemented sessions to proactively reset application passwords and decreased IT help desk tickets by 70 percent
• A customer created a way for blended agents to assist with data-entry or claims processing

McConnell continued, “Ultimately, agents will be able to deliver a better customer experience because they are receiving necessary training and communications needed to serve customers."

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