We’re back with another installment of "Ask Aspect", a series where we gather insights from our experienced team of workforce wizards and contact center veterans. Last time, we talked with Mary Ward about customer pain points in workforce management. Today, we’re chatting with Shawn McCormick, Lead Product Manager at Aspect.
Shawn has more than 25 years of workforce industry experience, starting his tenure when Aspect acquired TCS Management Group. With decades of expertise in workforce management, Shawn has served in customer support and sales engineer roles. So it’s safe to say, he knows Aspect WFM tools inside and out.
We took some time to chat with Shawn about his thoughts on Aspect’s tools, modern workforce hot topics, and future industry innovations. Answers have been edited for clarity, but still include all the WEM expert insights you’re looking for.
Q: You know Aspect WEM tools better than anyone, how do you feel about the platform being considered “too complex”?
A: This is not the same thing as getting on stage to perform King Lear and you have to know all the texts from all five acts. You don't have to learn everything at once. Don't fear the fact that Aspect WEM does so much. You can learn what you need to learn and focus on getting that down pat. Once you need additional functionality, attack it later with our support team to help you learn all you need to know.
Customers can feel good about the fact that if they need something a year from now, the functionality will be there and we'll support you when the day comes. What if you want to evolve towards a business that is more flexible for the employees? What if you want to scale to take account of new channels or new ways of of routing contacts? With Aspect, you've got that capability in waiting and it's accessible for you if you need it.
Q: What are key benefits of a unified workforce platform structure?
A: The whole is more than the sum of the parts. For example, agents could take points that they’re scoring in Aspect League and pull those back into Workforce to gamify the scheduling process. If an employee takes a lousy shift that nobody wants, they get points. If they take that shift trade that nobody wants to take, they get points. What you do with those points, would depend on the employer. Do you get better position in shift bids? Do you get a great parking space? Do you get a gift? Having cohesive data moving between different products can help improve employee experience and make it easier to recognize trends in performance, which can inform decision making.
Q: AI is a hot topic in WFM now. What’s your take on AI and the way it’s applied to workforce technology?
A: I don't think anybody has any business talking about AI unless they can articulate what they're trying to accomplish with it. I think there are some excellent use cases in the workforce management arena.
Customers are really looking for a reasonable, measured, truly effective application of AI. But some customers, especially forecasters, are highly skeptical about whether an AI can do the job that they've been doing for 15-20 plus years. There’s a concern that workforce AI will hallucinate in the way ChatGPT and Google search engine can, which will result in incorrect forecasts. Forecasters worry if they just take it at face value and create schedules, they’ll have a disaster when the schedules are put into place.
Applications of AI should not deprive customers of the choice that they are accustomed to having, which gives them as much or as little influence on the forecast as they care to have. Same with the scheduling process and the intraday process. We must give users the ability to choose how much impact and influence they want AI to have on their processes.
Q: How do you think applications of AI will impact employees? Do you think AI will start replacing WFM teams in contact centers?
A: I recently had a customer ask “how many people on my WFM team are you going to replace with AI?” Maybe none. Maybe some. Maybe you have to actually hire more people because you’ll have more time to spread workforce guidance and best practices to the back office or to the other parts of your organization that need support. Hiring more people or reallocating time to spread this influence can really make a huge measurable difference across your entire organization. Judicious, well reasoned use of AI can make differences in employee satisfaction with more schedule flexibility and more efficiency.
Q: What about contact center agents? How do you think AI impact their workdays?
A: Agents are the biggest workforce audience and AI should also be making their days better. Processes like automated schedule flexibility make the agent's life a lot easier and give them an automated way to interact with their schedules that doesn't require a lot of clicks.
If an agent wanted to have the 19th off, but that’s not available, AI should be able to suggest additional dates like the 20th or 21st instead. These types of automated personalized offers could actually make a difference in their lives make them feel better about the jobs they do.
A frictionless, stress-free experience with AI is critical for agents to have a positive view AI as a helpful part of their workday. Aspect’s latest innovation Workforce Experience offers that kind of human-centered, collaborative platform for agents to claim some control over their work lives.
Have more questions about AI and automation in workforce management? Get more insights from Shawn in " Embracing AI in workforce management” and stay tuned for our next installment of Ask Aspect. See you next time!
