Building a Crisis-Ready Support Function With AI and WFM

Kate Hutchinson at Assembled explores how support teams can leverage AI and advanced workforce management tools to address the unpredictable nature of customer demand and enhance issue resolution during peak times, moving beyond traditional staffing strategies.

Support teams rely on their tech stacks to deliver top-notch customer experiences. Without the right tools – ticketing systems, knowledge bases, and workforce management (WFM) platforms – even the most skilled teams struggle to meet customer expectations.

But today, simply having the right tools isn’t enough to solve the most pressing challenge support teams face: resolving customer issues – especially when unexpected demand spikes hit.

Traditionally, the only way to scale support and meet rising customer demand was by adding more agents.

With the help of forecasting and capacity planning, support leaders could anticipate volume and bring in the necessary in-house or outsourced agents. But here’s the catch: what looks good on paper doesn’t always translate to reality.

The Unpredictable Nature of Support

Anyone who’s spent time in support knows the unpredictable nature of contact volume. A product goes viral, a major outage happens, or a high-profile influencer shares your brand – and suddenly your well-forecasted support demand explodes. Unplanned spikes in volume can throw even the best-prepared teams into chaos.

You’ve been there. Teams scramble to reassign agents, make frantic calls to BPO partners for more coverage, and individual agents push themselves to their limits. The sole focus in those moments? Resolving customer issues as fast as possible.

This is where your support tech stack and WFM tools come into play. But while WFM tech helps you manage staffing and respond to surging demand, it doesn’t solve the root of the problem: the resolution itself.

Workforce Management: Your Staffing Command Centre

Workforce management (WFM) technology has long been the go-to solution for support leaders who need to track demand and allocate resources effectively.

Think of it as the command centre for staffing. Your WFM platform helps you pull levers to adjust schedules, redistribute agents, and make critical staffing decisions based on what the business needs.

But here’s the reality: even with great WFM tools, unexpected spikes can leave you stretched thin, scrambling to respond.

More staff alone can’t always save the day. That’s where AI comes into play – the new lever that fundamentally changes how support teams approach issue resolution.

Rethinking Issue Resolution in the Age of AI

Today, we’re no longer bound by a single lever (hiring more agents) to resolve issues during peak demand.

Advances in AI have introduced a new capability: using intelligent automation to resolve issues without relying on human agents.

This game-changer allows support teams to scale operations beyond human limits, transforming how they handle crises.

While you’ve likely heard that AI can automate repetitive tasks or streamline self-service, its true potential lies in its ability to resolve complex customer issues.

AI-powered tools aren’t just making it easier to find answers, they’re taking things a step further by reasoning through multi-step resolutions – even in high-stress, high-volume situations.

This blog post has been re-published by kind permission of Assembled – View the Original Article

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About Assembled

Assembled is a Support Operations platform that helps companies maintain exceptional customer experiences, no matter what lies ahead. Leading brands use Assembled's workforce and vendor management capabilities to make optimal staffing decisions, gain visibility into performance and productivity, and unlock new ways to serve evolving customer needs.

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Call Centre Helper is not responsible for the content of these guest blog posts. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of Call Centre Helper.

Author: Assembled
Reviewed by: Rachael Trickey