By Kristen Jacobsen, Director of Marketing, Calabrio

Last year, I wrote an article entitled Can the Contact Center Go Mobile?  The reaction was certainly mixed between those who could and those who could not envision less physical restriction on an operation that, without a doubt, invokes images of workers tethered to headsets and workstations.

The challenge is not to think of contact center operations monolithically, but as a series of individual tasks and activities that mesh together to create each employee’s job and work experience as a whole.

We can look to consumer apps as a model. We probably wouldn’t use a mobile application to set up a mortgage, but we might use one to make a payment from time to time when and where it’s convenient. We probably wouldn’t place a complicated appliance order from our smart phone, but we might use one to check on the status of the shipment.

Remember, the mobile apps we use don’t need to replicate an entire application. There will always be activities that we’re more comfortable performing on a computer. Mobile apps need to do just enough to easily, accurately and conveniently accomplish a specific task.

So for contact centers, think about mobility in terms of enabling specific job elements or activities to be done from anywhere. It’s a means to make the time contact center employees and managers spend in the office or at their desk that much more productive.

Let’s start with a supervisor and, to be conservative, mobility within the walls of the contact center itself. Arm supervisors with a mobile dashboard on a pad device, and they have the power and flexibility to stay on top of call volumes, service level, adherence and alerts even when they aren’t at their desk. If they review a subpar transaction evaluation that needs immediate attention, they can take it with them for a quick coaching session at the agent’s workstation, rather than push an impersonal chat or coaching module from their desk. They also might want to keep tabs on adherence anytime, anywhere, and access a mobile application specifically designed for that task.

Beyond the contact center walls, approving a vacation request, checking in on a team’s schedule for the next day, or verifying agent quality scores can all be done from anywhere.

Perhaps more difficult to imagine is the mobility of the agent. Certainly, agents shouldn’t start taking customer calls at the grocery store, but think of all the activities that they do perform during the workday that don’t need to happen at their workstation. In fact, might they be more effective, efficient and satisfied with their jobs if they had this mobile flexibility?

For example, wouldn’t it be better for agents to request a shift swap for the next day when a home emergency occurs rather than calling in sick the next morning? Might it be more convenient for them to make a vacation request when they are at home reviewing their personal calendar? What if they were so enthusiastic about their work performance that they took the time over the weekend to check in on their previous week’s metrics and think about how to make adjustments prior to the next week? All are examples of quick, workday-independent activities that provide agents with more of the work/life flexibility that other job types already embrace.

This year at Enterprise Connect, Calabrio is offering a hands-on mobile experience that features a variety of mobile devices and applications designed specifically for the contact center agent, supervisor and manager roles. By allowing attendees to experience examples of contact center mobility first hand, we’re hoping to make the role for mobility in contact centers clear.

With agent retention high on the list of what keeps contact center managers up at night, thinking outside of the cube, so to speak, may provide a clear motivational perk for today’s freedom-hungry workforce.