Research

Publication Date: 10 May 2006

ID Number: G00139596

The Importance of Aligning Campaign Management With

Contact Center Workforce Optimization
Adam Sarner, Jim Davies

Campaign management response and conversion rates will improve when they are
aligned with workforce optimization and growing contact center operations. Both
departments need to align to achieve success.

2006 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution of this publication in any form
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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

The action items across planning, skills/awareness and performance metrics start with simple
steps (such as formal communication between departments) toward longer-term strategic
initiatives. Begin with the first action item in each category, such as communication efforts,
because each item represents nontechnical, lower-cost, quick wins. Aligning the marketing
department and contact center across all these categories will deliver the most effective return.

STRATEGIC PLANNING ASSUMPTION(S)

During the next two years, more than 90 percent of inbound campaigns will fail to align with an
organization's workforce optimization portfolio, hindering overall campaign management
conversion rates by at least 5 percent (0.7 probability).

ANALYSIS
Inbound and outbound marketing can make an impact by aligning with the contact center.
Alignment with campaign management functionality, such as a real-time recommendation engine
(see "World-Class Building Blocks for Multichannel Campaign Management") that deals with offer
arbitration, is a good start, but there is also a need for alignment at a higher level with the contact
center's workforce optimization solution. Workforce optimization aligns and optimizes siloed call
center technologies spanning from quality management and workforce management to contact
center performance management and e-learning for enhanced efficiency and effectiveness.
Inbound Campaigns and Workforce Optimization
For certain industries, such as business-to-consumer financial banking, telecommunications and
insurance industries where there are multiple products and services with significant interaction
through a contact center inbound campaign management initiatives can be highly successful.
Marketers are seeing up to five times the conversion rate for campaigns that are offered within an
inbound interaction than an outbound one. Formal alignment of the contact center with inbound
campaign management initiatives by using workforce optimization will optimize response and
conversion rates within an inbound environment. Inbound marketing campaigns from planning
to execution should involve the contact center for agent scheduling, training, evaluations,
incentives and metrics, but rarely do. During the next two years, more than 90 percent of inbound
campaigns will fail to align with an organization's workforce optimization portfolio, hindering
overall campaign management conversion rates by at least 5 percent (0.7 probability).
Outbound Campaigns and Workforce Optimization
Outbound campaign effectiveness can be influenced and tracked. Most contact centers are still
"one and done" environments that do not track campaigns, identify leads, take orders or focus on
aspects such as average handling time and first-call resolution percentages. However, agents
who take an informed stance on a marketing campaign can influence a response for a campaign,
even if the response happens elsewhere. For example, a customer calls into a bank to transfer
some money and, during the conversation, mentions a recent TV campaign for a car loan. The
agent has the opportunity to engage with the customer along the lines of, "Yes, it made me laugh
too." Or the agent might say, "What a great deal. Are you interested?" The ability to track this
outbound campaign receptiveness is often lost because it's not linked to the initial inquiry.
Workforce optimization can help with:

Training (awareness)

Publication Date: 10 May 2006/ID Number: G00139596

2006 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved.

Page 2 of 5

Evaluations (checking for conversation engagements at the campaign level via call
recordings)

Speech analytics (tracking campaign receptiveness through conversation audio

analysis)

Following are three key alignment needs and associated action items for marketing and contact
center departments.
Staffing/Planning Alignment
Failure to plan for campaigns when agents are scheduled leads to longer customer wait times
and increased dropped calls because of the increased call volume and misalignment with agent
availability. Customers who choose to wait on hold for this prolonged period will have significantly
lower satisfaction rates and are less likely to complete a transaction or respond positively to a
campaign. Customers who hang up after waiting may not call back. As a result, the opportunity is
lost.
Action Items

Initiate verbal communication between the call center scheduler and the campaign
planner.

Provide the center scheduler with access to the campaign management planning tool to
provide real-time access to campaign plans and associated information.

Explore the direct integration between your campaign management software and
workforce management tool to begin automating the forecasting and scheduling of
agents based on future campaigns.

Conduct appropriate alignment and forecasting to justify hiring additional resources

(higher costs), which will be offset by higher revenue.

Explore a specialized contact center agent group (or outsourcer) that is solely or partially
geared toward handling peak loads and calls that require a marketing, as opposed to
service, mentality.

Performance and Metrics Alignment

Traditional agent performance metrics tend to focus on efficiency goals and fail to cater to sales
and marketing requirements, where goals tend to be increasing leads, lead quality, sales
revenue, retention, cross-selling and up-selling. Changing from these traditional contact center
goals will be a step-by-step process that builds on small wins to establish justification.
Action Items

Model the connection between call center metrics (for example, time of calls and
number of agents) with campaign metrics (for example, number of responses, offers
accepted, closed sales or qualified leads to sales).

Begin a pilot program to prove a positive return on investment between potentially

higher service costs (for example, longer call length) and increased revenue from
successful campaign execution.

Offer incentives to agents and provide access to their targets via personal dashboards
that are available in a workforce optimization solution.

Publication Date: 10 May 2006/ID Number: G00139596

2006 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved.

Page 3 of 5

Deploy a speech analytics tool to assess campaign awareness. Often, customers will
refer to campaigns during an inbound call that are unrelated to their inquiries. Recorded
customer interactions can be mined for campaign-related conversations and statistical
information that can be reported back to marketing for future channel/content guidance.

Campaign Awareness and Skill Alignment

Lack of awareness among contact center agents about new campaigns can significantly affect
their effectiveness. Agents need to be aware of impending campaigns so they can take an
informed stance when customers call in. This may require additional agent training. Ideally, their
desktop will provide access to a list of customer-specific, qualified campaigns/offers, and
integration with campaign management applications can offer scripting or pop-up screens using
embedded analytics for offer optimization (setting priorities for campaigns), which provide agents
with information they can use.
Action Items

Initiate verbal communication between call center supervisors and your campaign
planner. Supervisors can e-mail and instant message their agents with news of the
campaign, and hang posters on the wall to drive awareness.

Align formal agent training plans with campaign/product launches. An integrated

workforce optimization solution can help manage these training alignment initiatives.

Modify agent evaluation forms within a quality management application to reflect

campaign activity (for example, whether the agent was aware of the campaign and if he
or she generated a lead from a response).

Update e-service applications, such as knowledge management and e-mail response

management systems, to incorporate marketing campaigns to aid interactions (for
example, problem resolution and requests for information on campaigns).

Tactical Guidelines
The contact center can be a critical influencer of marketing campaign effectiveness. Strategic and
tactical alignment to the contact center and the marketing department must be made.

Publication Date: 10 May 2006/ID Number: G00139596

2006 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved.

Page 4 of 5

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Publication Date: 10 May 2006/ID Number: G00139596

2006 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved.

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