AI Communications
Today, we announced that RingCentral has acquired CommunityWFM, a leading contact center Workforce Management solution. Our mission at RingCentral is to empower businesses of all sizes to communicate effortlessly with their customers, and use the power of AI to help businesses unlock greater opportunities. CommunityWFM is a natural fit for RingCX, as both provide advanced AI capabilities that are easy to deploy and use for businesses of any size.
Here’s how AI Workforce Management will continue to help RingCX customers deliver effortless customer experiences, powered by AI.
Providing the optimal mix of agents
Contact center leaders walk a fine line between meeting SLAs and customer expectations while maximizing agent productivity. Traditional forecasting methods, which often rely on historical information and manual adjustments, can lead to overstaffing or understaffing. Not having enough agents at any given time can impact the customer experience, but overstaffing results in idle, unproductive agents and unnecessary overhead costs.
AI Workforce Management, on the other hand, utilizes machine learning models to analyze vast datasets. This includes historical call volumes, average handle times, seasonality, agent performance metrics, and external factors such as marketing campaigns or weather events to generate highly precise forecasts. All of these factors combined creates optimal staffing levels, ensuring that the right number of agents with the right skills are available to handle customer interactions at any given time.
Adjusting to meet real-time demand
Traditional contact center scheduling often faces a significant challenge: a lack of real-time flexibility. This issue becomes apparent when unexpected events occur, such as a sudden spike in call volume, a group of agents calling in sick, or a marketing campaign generating more inquiries than anticipated. Manual scheduling processes, which can be reliant on spreadsheets and phone calls, are simply too slow and cumbersome to adapt to these intraday fluctuations.
The answer to this challenge is Automated Schedule Adjustment Plans (ASAP). When an intraday event requires a schedule change, the software can rapidly generate additional schedule options based on predetermined business rules and agent parameters. With just a few clicks, managers can send out schedule offers to eligible agents via multiple channels, including a mobile app, SMS, or internal channels. The technology enables agents to quickly accept or reject the offer, and the system automatically updates the schedule in real-time. This capability not only ensures optimal staffing levels to meet fluctuating demand but also empowers agents with greater control over their work-life balance. Best of all, ASAP provides a variety of strategies to allow users to increase or decrease staffing levels.
Tracking real-time adherence
The traditional method of monitoring agent adherence is a manual, time-consuming process. Supervisors are forced to constantly watch agent activity screens to ensure staff are following their schedules. This approach is reactive rather than proactive. This results in poor agent accountability, missed service level targets, and a negative impact on customer satisfaction. Furthermore, this constant policing can damage the relationship between agents and their supervisors, fostering an environment of mistrust and unnecessary stress.
AI Workforce Management provides real-time adherence (RTA) monitoring and alerting capabilities. The software automatically compares an agent’s actual activity, which is pulled directly from the ACD (Automatic Call Distributor), with their scheduled activity. If an agent deviates from their schedule, the system immediately flags the discrepancy and can send an automated alert to the agent, their supervisor, or both. This instant feedback loop helps agents stay on track and allows managers to address potential issues before they impact service levels or other agents. And for the business, it provides immediate ROI to justify the cost of the system and contribute to a more profitable WFM strategy.
Engaging and empowering agents
In a traditional contact center, agent communication and empowerment often fall short. Managers typically control all aspects of an agent’s schedule, leaving little room for flexibility or personal input. Communication about schedule changes, shift swaps, or time-off requests is often inefficient, relying on disparate homegrown systems. The ad-hoc approach hinders the work-life balance of agents and creates a chaotic and stressful environment for time off, where requests can fall through the cracks.
AI Workforce Management places a strong emphasis on agent empowerment and communication on a single, connected platform accessible to everyone. Through a dedicated mobile app and self-service features, agents gain additional control and visibility over their work lives. They can view their schedules in real time, request time off, and even initiate shift swaps or bid on shift blocks if it makes sense for everyone involved. Empowering agents with the tools to manage their own schedules and communicate their needs directly fosters a more positive work environment, leading to increased job satisfaction, better performance, and higher retention.
Interested in AI Workforce Management? Visit https://www.ringcentral.com/ringcx/workforce-engagement-management.html to learn more
Originally published Sep 08, 2025
