Real-time management is a crucial element in achieving success with a customer support team. While forecasting, scenario planning, and meticulous scheduling can position your team well, constant reevaluation and optimisation in the moment are essential. Without this ongoing scrutiny, there is a risk of using resources inefficiently, which can impact your quality, SLAs, and bottom line.

As we detailed in our previous blog post, customer expectations have changed in recent years. 90% of customers view an instant response as either crucial or very important when contacting customer service.

At Surfboard, we believe that efficiency and adaptability are crucial in delivering exceptional customer support.

Our new real-time schedule dashboard provides a comprehensive overview of your entire customer support function, allowing you to efficiently manage and optimise your resources. With the ability to monitor operations from a bird’s-eye view, you can stay agile and responsive to the dynamic needs of your customers.

This oversight allows your customer support function to become more proactive, responsive, and adaptable. The real-time schedule dashboard empowers you to navigate through fluctuations in customer demand with ease, ensuring that your team can consistently deliver high-quality support even during unexpected peaks.

Key benefits of real-time management

• Gain instant insights into ongoing customer support activities across the day.
• Quickly respond to unexpected peaks in customer queries or service requests. Easily redeploy additional capacity to high-priority channels or specific tasks.
• Optimise resource allocation to ensure efficient handling of customer interactions.
• Ensure that critical issues are addressed promptly by directing resources accordingly.
• Adjust surfer schedules on the fly to meet changing demand and seamlessly update them with Surfboard’s instant publishing tools and Slack integrations.

Monitor channels, activities and team capacity

Move faster and understand where your capacity is placed at a glance. View staffing per channel, activity or team – including full visibility over meetings and breaks.

In addition to displaying staffing details per channel, we introduce a unique ‘team capacity’ view. This empowers leaders to assess team utilisation quickly, making faster decisions when seeking additional support for specific channels or teams in need.

Designed for action

Surfboard’s dashboard is tailored for immediate action, offering a streamlined approach that sets it apart from other tools. No more drowning in data – our real-time features make it effortless to update and share schedules in the moment.

Use speedy editing tools to move surfers from lower-priority tasks such as admin or project time to where demand is high. Move surfers en-masse using find-and-replace or tweak the schedule directly with delightful, interactive editing.

Keep surfers notified and on-task

Avoid the need for chasing and micro-management with smart Slack notifications. Exclusive to Surfboard, our Slack App sends agents reminders whenever they need to change task, including notifications when a schedule is updated mid-shift, eliminating the need for manual follow-ups and enhancing efficiency.

Review and monitor adherence with our time-on-task tools, keeping you connected and in control of your team’s behaviour.

Versatile and customisable views

The dashboard offers versatile filtering options, allowing users to tailor the view to what matters most to them – be it key channels, specific teams, or other priorities. These filters can be adjusted on-the-fly, providing flexibility at any given moment.

Connect the dots

Combined with Surfboard’s powerful suite of integrated forecasting, adherence, and shrinkage insights, real-time management empowers team leads with full visibility over how your team is operating at any given time.

Feed retrospective learnings back into your schedules with adaptable and dynamic activity plans to continuously improve your scheduling.

Prepare for any eventuality with scenario planning, allowing you to model different scenarios by pre-planning your response.

Our real-time schedule dashboard serves as your command centre, offering a comprehensive overview of your entire customer support function. This bird’s-eye view empowers you to efficiently manage and optimise resources, ensuring agility and responsiveness to the dynamic needs of your customers.

At Surfboard, we are committed to providing you with the tools you need to stay ahead, and we’re excited to expand our range of real-time solutions in the near future. Book a demo with our team to learn more about Surfboard’s powerful workforce management solutions.