Resources: Blogs and white papers

By Mark Alpern, COO, Cinareo. This article reflects patterns we see repeatedly when reviewing real-world staffing models across contact center environments.   In many of these environments, the largest source of staffing error is not forecast accuracy, but how abandonment and retries are treated, or ignored, in the underlying model. Despite decades of technological change in contact center operations, Erlang-based staffing models remain the de facto standard for determining f

By Karen Elliott, CEO, Cinareo. In capacity planning software, complexity has become a proxy for credibility.  It seems like more exposed variables and more buttons and functions sends the message: if it’s complicated, it must be accurate. After years of building a planning system, I’ve come to believe the opposite. Complexity is the easiest thing to promote. Clarity is the hard part. And when complexity becomes the interface, planning slows, trust erodes, and decision-making

Shrinkage remains one of the most misunderstood yet impactful metrics in contact center management. While often viewed as a simple Workforce Management (WFM) percentage, miscalculating it leads to significant inefficiencies that affect customer experience, employee engagement, and financial performance

Key Insights from Cinareo’s Recent Conversation with Industry Experts Mark Alpern and Daniel Piper This article is the fourth and final part in our series exploring key themes from Cinareo’s recent conversation with workforce planning experts Mark Alpern and Daniel Piper. CFOs, operations executives, and budget holders often find themselves at a critical juncture where workforce planning succeeds or stalls. WFM teams build credible forecasts and thoughtful capacity plans. How

Key insights from Cinareo’s recent conversation with industry experts Mark Alpern and Daniel Piper This article is the third in a four-part series exploring key themes from Cinareo’s recent conversation with workforce planning experts Mark Alpern and Daniel Piper. Workforce planning often breaks down not because the work is done poorly, but because the connection between planning and execution is weak or inconsistent. In the earlier parts of this series, we explored how unrel

Key insights from Cinareo’s recent conversation with industry experts Mark Alpern and Daniel Piper This article is the second in a four-part series exploring key themes from Cinareo’s recent conversation with workforce planning experts Mark Alpern and Daniel Piper. Even accurate forecasts can collapse once they reach the operation floor. That paradox – doing everything right and still missing the mark  – was at the center of Cinareo’s recent discussion on why workforce plans

Key Insights from Cinareo’s Recent Conversation with Industry Experts Mark Alpern and Daniel Piper This article is the first in a four-part series exploring key themes from Cinareo’s recent conversation with workforce planning experts Mark Alpern and Daniel Piper. Even the best workforce plans can fail if they start with unreliable data. That was one of the first realities acknowledged in a recent webinar , Why Workforce Plans Breakdown , where industry experts Mark Alpern a

Why Complex Tools Miss the Mark and How to Find What Works , a thought leadership paper by  Karen Elliott . Unnecessarily complex...

Simplicity in WFM Software Isn’t a Flaw… It’s What Sets the Best Apart By Karen Elliott, CEO, Cinareo You know the feeling. You’re...