It's hard to imagine that after all these years, we still need to make the case for workforce management (WFM) [as] one of the most effective tools available for call centers to make resource allocation decisions. And yet, a lot of people still don't use it, or use it to its full potential.

About six months ago, Frost & Sullivan did an end user survey of contact center managers. We asked all sorts of questions about their centers, how they operate and what kinds of technology they use. When we asked about WFM, we found that a solid 58 percent of American centers were using it. On one level, that seems pretty good: you'd think if three-fifths of a group is using something that it would represent a pretty solid consensus that something works, right?

But then you have to put that in context against the fact that WFM has been around for decades and so is a very stable, well understood set of technologies. It makes you wonder about the other 42 percent who aren't using WFM. What are they doing to manage their workforce? The answer, unfortunately, is that there are still an awful lot of homegrown, manual systems out there.

When we asked people who were not using WFM what factors had gone into their decision to bypass this tried and true technology, they far and away answered: cost. That was the No. 1 answer, cited by 53 percent of respondents in our survey. Historically that makes a lot of sense. Back in the old days -- and by old days I mean the 1990s -- WFM was a pretty expensive and complex proposition. It required a lot of computational horsepower at a time when processing hardware was very expensive, and it required a contact center to devote a team...