With the shift to remote work, businesses find it increasingly difficult to keep track of their agents’ productivity. Lack of visibility into agent performance makes it difficult to identify and resolve issues quickly.
On the other hand, companies that ask their employees to work from the office face a new challenge: decreased engagement and productivity. Oftentimes, people leave their jobs for greater flexibility and a better work-life balance.
The good news is that companies can succeed through remote, hybrid, and in-office work arrangements, provided they are transparent and flexible.
This article will discuss how your business can use Time Doctor to improve agent productivity and engagement. In this article, we’ll talk about the challenges associated with agent productivity and motivation, as well as the key features of Time Doctor that can assist in addressing them.
Let’s get started.
4 challenges in managing agent productivity
It is difficult to improve agents’ productivity without addressing the four most common interrelated challenges. Here’s a quick overview of each.
1. Lack of visibility and metrics
Leaders need timely data and insights to stay on top of their business. Most businesses cannot accurately measure their agents’ performance because they don’t have access to real-time data on their agents’ activities. With no visibility into the agents’ performance, they have difficulty determining how productive they are.
On the other hand, agents are often under pressure to work overtime or late hours or handle multiple assignments to prove their worth. Having no real-time data to measure team or individual performance can result in workplace issues such as burnout and employee dissatisfaction.
2. Inefficient workload distribution
Often, agents’ poor performance can be attributed to improper scheduling and workload distribution. It may happen because of insufficient staffing levels, employee absence, employee turnover, or simply too many demands being placed on one person.
Ultimately, this may lead to the available agents being overworked and burned out, resulting in decreased productivity.
3. No flexibility
There is a direct relationship between an engaged employee and productivity. Managers struggle to keep the agents engaged and motivated. Work flexibility is one of the critical factors that increase employee engagement.
A Deloitte survey shows 94% of respondents say they would benefit from work flexibility, with the highest gains being reduced stress and better mental health.
Agents can perform poorly due to a lack of flexibility and engagement.
4. Lack of training
Employee training is more important than ever to maintain a competitive edge. Training improves employee and customer experiences, reduces turnover, and increases profit.
Identifying training needs and making provisions for workforce training is crucial for businesses.
The failure to do so may result in poor job performance and increased levels of work-related stress among agents. All this will ultimately result in low productivity and profitability.
How Time Doctor fixes agent’s productivity problems
Time Doctor provides the data and insights needed for business leaders to stay in the loop throughout the work day. This way, companies can provide employees with the flexibility and remote working arrangements they want without compromising quality and productivity.
Johan le Bail, CEO of Eufonie, decided to transition his workforce to remote work to continue operating during the pandemic. After researching various solutions, he chose Time Doctor because of its powerful features.
Take a look at how Time Doctor’s Workday Insights and real-time monitoring allowed Eufonie to identify employees’ available time, resulting in a 30% increase in productivity.
Here is a detailed breakdown of how Time Doctor helps solve the above challenges and boosts agent productivity.
1. Data and accountability
By analyzing Time Doctor’s real-time data, managers can analyze the performance of individual agents. This data helps them create an accountability culture, recognize top performers, mentor weaker performers, and train new agents.
For example, with Time Doctor, managers can analyze web and app usage to improve quality by measuring how much time is spent on call center software for post-call tasks. Managers can take immediate action if agents work longer than the stipulated time on After-Call Work (ACW).
The web and app usage report can also provide details on what agents do when they are not on the phone.
Here are the key features of Time Doctor that can help:
A. Time tracking
With Time Doctor, you can track time using two convenient modes.
The interactive app lets you track time for different tasks using a simple start/stop timer. So call center agents could track time spent on phone calls, different customers’ calls, time spent resolving queries off the phone, etc.
If you’re worried about your agents forgetting and would prefer to track their time automatically, you can set up Time Doctor to do so automatically. This setting starts the timer as soon as the agent turns on his or her computer.
Additionally, there is an option for silent monitoring, which tracks time silently as employees work without disturbing them.
Watch a webinar featuring another case study of a 450-seat call center that transitioned from on-premise to fully remote with surprising results.
B. Productivity reports
Time Doctor provides actionable insight into an agent’s efficiency and productivity with detailed reports and analytics.
Here are the different types of employee productivity reports:
- Activity summary report: Displays an employee’s active, unproductive, productive, manual, and mobile time for a selected time range. A comparison of agents’ activity reports who perform similar tasks allows you to resolve any problems related to employee engagement and productivity.
- Hours tracked report: This shows your team’s work hour data during a specific date range. This can help in scheduling and managing shifts.
- Projects & tasks report: Let’s you see how much time an agent spends on different tasks and projects. It can help determine if agents spend much more time on certain tasks than they should.
- Custom export report: Allows you to customize the information to include in a report without downloading individual reports from multiple pages. You can customize the report to include the data you want, making it as simple and convenient as having your own team productivity dashboard.
- Attendance report: Shows whether an agent was Present, Absent, Partially Absent, or Late for their shift. An agent’s shift schedule, attendance, and work hours on a calendar day can be managed with this report.
- Timeline report: This report shows who is working, who is on break, and how long it has been since a user tracked their time. You can use this information to ensure uninterrupted service to their customers.
- Web & app usage report: See which websites and apps agents spend their time on to help identify distractions like too much time on social media. You can also use this report to determine which software is used most, least, and not at all. In this way, you can save on unnecessary software licensing costs.
These comprehensive reports provide in-depth insights into your team’s activities from the moment the timer starts running. You can use this information to analyze and improve agent performance and spot bottlenecks affecting workflow.
Time Doctor’s reports also make tedious work processes like shift scheduling, attendance management, and payroll processing a breeze.
C. Idle time tracking
With Time Doctor’s idle time tracking feature, you can monitor agents’ productive time and see when they’re inactive.
The feature detects (but does not record) agents’ keystrokes and mouse movements and records the time when there’s no computer activity.
When the idle time crosses a particular preset limit, the tool nudges the agent to resume working by displaying an idle time pop-up alert. If the agent doesn’t resume working, it’ll automatically stop tracking time.
It helps agents avoid wasting time, whether they are working from home or not.
Note: Time Doctor isn’t a keylogger. It only detects whether the agent made any keystrokes or mouse movements.
D. Email notifications
Time Doctor provides daily and real-time email notifications based on performance triggers that business leaders deem most important.
Managers and team leaders receive automatic notifications when certain events occur, such as an agent not starting work, not starting a shift on time, or a team member adding manual time.
Getting notified when someone is late or unexpectedly absent can help managers find coverage for clients who need constant support. As a result, client expectations can be met, which helps to increase client satisfaction and retention. With Time Doctor, your teams can reduce attendance issues, whether working remotely, hybrid, or in-office.
E. Optional screencasts
Screencasts help provide precise proof of work to their clients in real time.
It also helps managers identify what employees are working on and spot any training needs so they can improve productivity.
Note: The administrator can blur sensitive information in the screenshot to protect agents’ privacy.
F. Client login
Time Doctor’s client login access feature works like a client self-service tool for those requiring proof of work. It allows clients to access valuable insights about their projects and tasks.
2. Workload balance
It is crucial for businesses to optimize their scheduling to meet the needs of their clients. A well-planned schedule helps them reduce costs and maintain a balanced workload for their agents.
Time Doctor provides workday insights and real-time monitoring to identify agent availability. This can increase overall productivity as management can use this data to achieve an outstanding workload balance.
Managers also face challenges related to agent work-life balance and burnout, particularly in a work-from-home setup.
Time Doctor identifies whether employees work on weekends, late hours, or too many hours, regardless of whether they are operating from home or in the office. This can help managers prevent burnout and work-life balance issues. Early action on fixing this can improve employee engagement and retention.
This indicates the importance of having live data access for managers. Time Doctor has the following feature that they can use for an improved workload balance:
A. Real-Time dashboards
The team dashboard provides immediate insights and updates to managers, business leaders, and clients.
Analyzing time can provide managers with real-time insight into agents’ workloads. With Time Doctor, managers can see a straightforward breakdown of the total amount of time each agent spends working. Moreover, they can customize what is tracked and analyzed in the dashboard.
B. Most work-life balance potential issues widget
Time Doctor’s Most work-life balance potential issues widget helps determine which employees are likely to have struggles balancing their personal and professional lives.
Management can detect overtime, late nights, weekends, and other irregular working schedules by tracking agents’ hours.
Thus, managers can focus on other areas of their job by having this information available to them at a moment’s notice.
3. Flexibility and employee engagement
With the help of Time Doctor, employees can take control of their personal time management and performance.
Teams can stay focused and on task no matter where and when they work, thanks to productivity features provided by Time Doctor that limit distractions and interruptions.
As a result, teams can work when they are most productive without having to worry about management interfering.
Here are the features that Time Doctor provides:
A. Website and app monitoring
Time Doctor tracks browsing patterns, websites, and applications agents use while working. Administrators can filter out time wasters by determining which websites and applications are productive (or not). As a result, agents can follow a flexible schedule and be productive anytime, anywhere.
B. Optional screenshots
This Time Doctor feature takes screenshots of users’ computer screens every few minutes and tracks mouse and keyboard activity. The manager can ensure accountability to the client by recording activity only when the team member is working.
C. Email notifications, real-time email alerts, and productivity reports
With Time Doctor, managers can handle their remote team without feeling overburdened and micromanaging.
Managers receive email notifications on changes in one or more factors like productivity, activity, work-life balance, attendance, and time editing. Plus, the new real-time email alerts help them instantly act on attendance issues.
In this way, managers are not required to monitor employees’ daily activities and check who has started working and who hasn’t.
The same applies to various productivity reports, which help managers make informed decisions about resource allocation, scheduling shifts, and fulfilling training and software requirements.
This gives employees autonomy and results in better engagement. Furthermore, employee productivity reports allow them to assess their performance and make improvements if required. All this promotes a culture of self-improvement. Having a positive work culture leads to employees being even more engaged and productive.
4. Identify training needs
One of the keys to improving agents’ productivity is quickly identifying training needs. For that, the company needs to monitor agent performance. By tracking how long individual team members spend on specific tasks and projects and comparing this data to the benchmark, businesses can recognize training needs and meet them. Here’s how to do it using Time Doctor:
A. Project and task management
This performance management feature lets managers create projects and tasks and assign them to an agent or team. They can use this feature to organize tasks by projects and clients. This way, managers can see exactly how long an agent spends on a specific task or project.
For example, suppose a contact center agent spends longer than usual on a particular customer conversation or resolving a customer query. In that case, managers are immediately aware and can address the need to train the agent before it escalates.
Next, let’s look at the seven main areas Time Doctor addresses.
7 key areas Time Doctor helps transform operations
Solutions like Time Doctor can help businesses deal with remote work’s unique challenges while improving productivity, profitability, and efficiency.
It is a top choice for call centers, BPOs, and agencies worldwide for several reasons:
- Monitoring: Business leaders can now make quick, data-driven decisions based on tracked time to stay on budget and scope.
- Productivity: The entire team can see how they’re spending their time. They can then pinpoint and address problem areas to improve personal performance.
- Accountability and transparency: It helps leaders gain complete visibility into agents’ activities throughout the workday, even if they work remotely.
- Employee retention: With Time Doctor, business leaders can offer employees flexibility. It also helps them manage their time better and encourages a healthy work-life balance.
- Training: They can identify and address training needs to increase agent efficiency. You can also use screencasts to ensure team members fully understand newly launched processes.
- Client satisfaction: Businesses can offer their clients accurate proof of work. This improves client retention and increases profitability.
- Profitability: In addition to increasing client retention, companies can manage to re-negotiate client rates based on the amount of time employees spend on client tasks, leading to improved profitability for the business.
A leading outsourcing provider, Phoenix Virtual Solutions, boosted client retention and improved productivity using Time Doctor. They, too, wanted to increase visibility into their remote workforce and provide customers with accurate data.
Phoenix Virtual Solutions was able to ensure transparency and offer their clients proof of work. This led to increased customer acquisition, satisfaction, and retention.
Check out their case study to learn how they achieved it with the help of Time Doctor.
For in-office, hybrid, and remote teams, like those managed by Eufonie and Phoenix Virtual Solutions, Time Doctor offers a greater level of autonomy for employees. This positively impacts their performance and job satisfaction.
Final thoughts
Many companies worldwide have been able to work smoothly remotely using Time Doctor, thereby achieving work transparency and providing proof of work to clients. Additionally, they can improve employee satisfaction.
Ultimately, they have not only achieved their goals but have also improved productivity, client satisfaction, and profitability.
Interested in finding out how Time Doctor can help you?
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