Contact center workforce management is a true balancing act. What with all the intricacies of scheduling, the heavy workload of call monitoring and training, the high standards of customer service, and the expectation of short call times, it can sometimes seem overwhelming. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way to take control of the situation? Not to have your schedule rendered inefficient by random call volume fluctuations? Not to be forever reacting to customer complaints?

There is. And it’s as simple as changing your mindset towards your contact center. What is this magic solution? Be proactive.

Most contact center workforces spend their days reacting to customers, whether to their questions, their complaints, their technical issues, or their new orders. But by changing the main focus of a contact center from providing reactive customer service to providing proactive customer service, contact center supervisors suddenly exercise more control over their staff’s daily workload, reduce costs by scheduling more efficiently, and as a bonus, customers are happier, as well.

So how can you make your contact center more proactive? Create a strategy of proactive contact. Don’t wait for your customers to call you – call them first, before they have the chance. Here are four different ways to make your customer service proactive.

1. Keep customers informed. Sending emails or setting up automated calls to let customers know what’s going on will go a long way towards reassuring them that progress is being made, and that they’ll be told instantly whenever there is a change in status. With a system like this in place, customers will not feel the need to call in nearly as often as they would if they were in the dark about their order or shipping status, their utility service restoration, or their claim status, for example.

2. Manage expectations proactively. If your company is aware of a problem, such as a canceled or delayed flight, or some other service or account related issue, contact customers who will be affected by the issue before they even know about it. By being the first to inform them of it, and at the same time offering an immediate solution, customers will be much more likely to think highly of your customer service than if they had to call in to complain themselves.

3. Anticipate your customers’ needs. There are certain transactions that almost always need to take place once a specific trigger has occurred. Rather than waiting for customers to call in on their own schedule to take care of these items, contact them as soon as the trigger presents itself. For example, in the case of a past due bill, you could immediately offer the customer payment arrangements.

4.  Surprise customers with valuable information. Rather than passively waiting for customers to call to upgrade their service or plan, actively let them know about their options. Use their account history to recommend a better choice of service to fit their needs, or tell them about new products or services that they might find useful.

By taking care of these common instances of interactions with customers with outgoing calls, you can reduce the number of incoming calls to your contact center, thereby making scheduling easier and more efficient. This saves your company money, while at the same time providing better customer service than a reactive approach ever could.