Customer Success
| Healthcare Support Services | | Print | |
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This healthcare support services company operates contact centers with more than 600 agents that help people address health, well-being and work-life issues. Its services include a 24-hour nurse line, assistance with emotional, financial and legal issues as well as management consultation services. The company also provides self-care publications and offers customer support. It takes a diverse group of agents, including work-at-home staff, to handle the wide range of services managed by the company’s five contact centers. Microsoft Excel alone could not do the trick. Facing increased pressure to manage these diverse groups more efficiently, the company turned to the IEX TotalView® Workforce Management system. “Prior to installing TotalView, we had no way to take intraday arrivals, skill assignments, forecast requirements, agent preferences or optimized breaks and lunches into account,” said a company representative. “But above all, it was extremely difficult to accurately schedule across sites for shared call volume.” A Variety of Scheduling OptionsThe company uses a wide variety of scheduling methods via TotalView to meet the needs of its diverse agent groups and business units. “Meeting the needs of both the agents and the business is a balancing act,” said the company’s system administrator. “Supporting more than one scheduling methodology allows each site and business line to choose the method that fits their specific needs.”Schedule BiddingThe Registered Nurses found that bidding for schedules suits them best. In fact, prior to using TotalView for bidding, RN schedules were rated only 80 percent effective. TotalView’s Schedule Bidding feature provided 91.78 percent effective schedules.Tour Group Templates / Agent AvailabilityThe Intake Notification staff, on the other hand, found that a combination of Tour Group Templates and Agent Availability input works best for them. Since implementing this process, Intake Coordinators have consistently met the company’s 95 percent adherence goal.Agent Availability / PreferencesCustomer Care Coordinators have found using Agent Availability and Preference input to generate flexible schedules suits their needs. “It allows agents to work desired start times, breaks and lunches, which has greatly increased job satisfaction among Customer Care Coordinators,” the company said.Optimizing Scheduling MethodsThe above scheduling methodologies have been further optimized with TotalView’s advanced scheduling features: Meeting Scheduler, Schedule Optimizer and Schedule Audit.Meeting Scheduler / OptimizerPrior to installing TotalView, the company used a manual process for scheduling breaks, lunches and offline activities. This process was both time consuming and inefficient. “The Meeting Scheduler and Schedule Optimizer free up valuable analyst time,” said the company. “Now they can quickly and accurately schedule breaks, lunches and offline activities while taking the needs of the business unit into consideration.”Schedule AuditPrior to implementing the TotalView Schedule Audit feature, it took an average of 3 hours to research schedule concerns. “The Schedule Audit function has reduced the time it takes to research administrative scheduling issues and answer schedule change questions,” said the company. “With the Schedule Audit feature, it now takes about 15 minutes.”Vacation Planner Streamlines PTO ProcessBefore TotalView’s Vacation Planner was implemented, managers and supervisors had to verify paid time off availability before approving requests. Now all schedules and accruals are tracked via Vacation Planner.“Implementing Vacation Planner has streamlined the entire PTO bidding process,” the company said. “This process requires little manager intervention. Previously, processing these requests took a lot of manual work.” WebStation Plus Promotes FairnessOne of the main things agents and managers like about Vacation Planner is its ability to interface with the WebStation Plus module. Prior to the WebStation Plus implementation work-at-home agents were at a distinct disadvantage in the schedule bidding process because they didn’t have access to the onsite kiosk. Now work-at-home agents and onsite agents have equal opportunity to make vacation bid requests.During the company’s most recent PTO bid, 98 percent of the RN staff was granted one of their top three preferences. A Team EffortOne of the keys to the company’s success has been its decision to reorganize the workforce management team.Initially, the company’s workforce management analysts were doing everything from building reports to watching real-time adherence. Therefore, all the analysts had permission to make system changes. This caused a number of issues. Forecasts were being overwritten, exception codes weren’t being used consistently between management units and schedule releases were disorganized. “Analysts’ time was spent being reactive,” said the company. “Rather than proactively innovating process improvements and being available to onsite staff, they were busy putting out fires.” To address these issues, they reorganized the analyst team, splitting them into three groups: Long-term Forecasting, Strategic Capacity Planning and Reporting; Short-term Forecasting, Tactical Planning & Scheduling; and the National Operations Center Group, which focuses on intraday and change management. The company also appointed an Administrator to be the main contact for all workforce management related issues. Now staffing plans are more accurate than ever. The company has been maintaining service level consistency and forecasting remains within 5 to 7 percent accuracy. “That’s an amazing rate considering we are forecasting more than 500,000 calls over the year on 33 active contact types,” the company said. Benefits
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