What is a Workflow?

A workflow is the series of steps toward completing a task or creating a product. It can consist of multiple stages involving multiple people and systems, and is often represented visually by a flowchart. Businesses often try to optimize workflows by automating them where possib+I269le and adding features like alerts to draw attention to steps in the workflow that are out of compliance.

Contact centers are becoming increasingly sophisticated with automating workflow tasks. Workflow automation represents an opportunity to reduce high labor costs by making tasks less labor-intensive. In addition, automating mundane workflow tasks will free up agent time to handle more sophisticated issues. Automation is often used for collecting basic customer data in an IVR prior to routing calls to a live agent or for streamlining post-call tasks such as filling in forms. Additionally, workflow automation can help eliminate the double-entry agents sometimes have to do to keep multiple systems up-to-date. This has the added benefit of increased accuracy. For managers, workflow automations can autonomously alert them to problems, allowing them to spend less time monitoring stats and more time working with their agents.

Other examples of contact center workflows that can be automated, reducing the need for manual intervention, include:

• Sending an email invitation to complete a customer satisfaction survey upon the completion of a call.
• Reviewing the subject lines of incoming emails and routing them to the appropriate agent group.
• Intraday adjustments, when automatic call distributors (ACDs) and workforce management systems are integrated.

Automating contact center workflows is not a new idea; however, as the use of artificial intelligence in the contact center continues to expand, there will be more and more opportunities for innovative automation.