Microsoft recently introduced a new Office add-in for Excel called Business Assist Forecast Service. This powerful tool can help brands forecast customer support volume and manage staffing. It will ultimately help reduce support costs.
What is Business Assist Forecast Service?
Business Assist Forecast Service is an add-in for Excel that uses machine learning to predict case and conversation volumes based on historical data. Analyzing past trends and volume levels manually is a time-consuming task, but this new service gives you the ability to forecast future support case volume quickly and confidently. The add-in can help businesses with support resource planning and allocation, ultimately reducing support costs.
Features of Business Assist Forecast Service
The Business Assist Forecast Service add-in has several features that make it a powerful tool for businesses. Some of these features include:
- Forecasting models: The add-in uses a set of forecasting models to predict case and conversation volumes based on historical data.
- Visualizations: This service allows users to visualize forecast volumes on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly interval basis for a time range of up to six months.
- Filtering and analysis: Users can filter and analyze subsets of forecasted volumes to fine-tune forecasts.
- Seasonal event detection: The add-in can automatically detect and adjust repeated seasonal events and holidays from historical traffic with an option to import your service calendar. This helps the forecasting model accurately predict volume during special or seasonal events.
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How to use this service
This service is available through Microsoft AppSource. To use the add-in, follow these steps:
- Open Excel and click on the “Insert” tab.
- Click on “Get Add-ins” and search for “Business Assist Forecast Service.”
- Click on “Add” to install the add-in.
- Once installed, open the add-in and select the data range you want to forecast.
- Choose the forecasting model you want to use and adjust any settings as needed.
- Click “Forecast” to generate the forecast.
Excel users can open the Home option and jump to the add-in option to install the Business Assist Forecast add-in. The currently applicable versions are as follows:
- Excel for the web
- Excel 2013 for Windows
- Excel 2016 for Windows
- Excel for Windows (Microsoft 365)
- Excel 2015 for Mac
- Excel for Mac (Microsoft 365)
Conclusion
Business Assist Forecast Service is a powerful tool that can help brands predict customer support volume and manage staff. By using machine learning to predict case and conversation volumes based on historical data, the add-in can help brands reduce support costs and better use resources. With features like visualizations, filtering and analysis, and seasonal event detection, this service is a valuable addition to any brand’s toolkit.
