Did you know Amazon Connect Customer now plans staffing for Tasks and Emails too?

Hi, it's Shiichan! Today I found a nice update for contact center operations, so let me share it with you.

AWS What's New aws.amazon.com

What was announced?

According to AWS's What's New, Amazon Connect Customer's forecasting, capacity planning, and scheduling capabilities now support Tasks and Emails workloads. The workforce optimization tools that used to cover only Voice and Chat now extend across all of a contact center's main channels.

The story so far

Amazon Connect Customer's agent scheduling originally provided forecasting and scheduling for Voice and Chat workloads. But in a real contact center, agents often handle Tasks like case processing and Email inquiries alongside calls and chats. Those channels weren't covered before, so even if Voice and Chat could be optimized through the system, Tasks and Emails likely had to be planned for separately.

What changes

Amazon Connect Customer now factors in each channel's unique characteristics — concurrent work handling, work durations ranging from minutes to months, and distinct service level requirements — when building forecasts and schedules. That means if your agents handle email inquiries or tasks like case processing alongside voice calls, you can generate a single unified forecast covering all of it, and build schedules that efficiently allocate agents across channels.

The key point is that end-to-end workforce optimization now happens within one solution, making it easier to maintain consistent service levels across every customer interaction channel.

Dive Deep

The announcement specifically calls out three channel characteristics that get factored in:

• Concurrent work handling
• Duration of work, ranging from minutes to months
• Distinct service level requirements per channel

This feature is available in all AWS Regions where Amazon Connect Customer agent scheduling is available. For setup details, check the Amazon Connect forecasting, capacity planning, and scheduling guide.

Wrap-up

• Amazon Connect Customer's forecasting, capacity planning, and scheduling now cover Tasks and Emails in addition to Voice and Chat
• You can build a unified forecast and schedule that accounts for concurrent work handling, work duration, and per-channel service level requirements
• Available in all AWS Regions where Amazon Connect Customer agent scheduling is supported

This is a welcome update for workforce management folks running multi-channel contact centers who've been juggling staffing across Voice, Chat, Tasks, and Emails!