Customer Success
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"Without a comprehensive workforce management solution, we would not be able to take our company and customer service delivery to the next level."This TotalView user is a leading provider of in-home service and home warranty products. In support of its customer service goals, the organization’s contact center handles thousands of service and warranty calls each day. Driven to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of contact handling while boosting customer and employee satisfaction, the organization deployed the IEX® TotalView® Workforce Management system."Overall, IEX has taken us from a manually administered call center to a sophisticated, automatic center with tools that assist with the entire operation and people-management processes," says a corporate spokesperson. Before adopting TotalView, the company used spreadsheets to manage scheduling. The process was largely manual, was based on limited insight into interval-by-interval contact volume and was generally static and inflexible. "General staffing, forecasting and performance analysis were completely manual processes," he says. "The ability to effectively manage business requirements through flexible scheduling simply did not exist." Streamlined SchedulingPrior to installing TotalView, the organization used a static scheduling method. Three-fourths of its agents worked Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m to 5:00 p.m. The remaining agents worked off peak hours. The three-step schedule planning and approval method the organization put in place with TotalView now ensures the daily plan and future projections are smoothly integrated into the company's operations. It also ensures the daily plan is backed by full departmental and operational buy-in.Each week, the company's operational experts generate an updated forecast and sample schedules. This plan feeds into a planning worksheet tailored for each group, and shows department managers the service level objectives and any variance of available resources ("overs and unders.") After the forecast and sample schedules are prepared, department managers use the planning sheets to adjust coverage for each agent team. Staffing shortages are addressed, and overages are used to slot meetings, training and other staff development activities. These changes are then returned to the operations team, which reviews all requested exceptions and works them into the finalized schedules. The new, balanced schedules are generated and published to the agent community through WebStation Schedule Viewer. This weekly planning method has proven to be a great success, which is demonstrated by the company's high adherence rate. Improved AdherenceMonitoring and managing schedule adherence and occupancy for the agent staff was nearly impossible prior to installing TotalView. Managers had their hands full simply trying to make sense of the data. Adherence measurement was a time-consuming process that required managers to manually identify employees they suspected weren’t following the set plan. Then they had to trace future activity through the call monitoring system."Prior to installing TotalView, no acceptable method of measuring associate adherence was available. The availability of adherence data through TotalView has highlighted the importance of metrics and helped align the focus of schedule management," the corporate spokesperson says. Adherence, once estimated at less than 60 percent under the old, spreadsheet-bound scheduling system, is now at 93 percent. The always-available WebStation ScheduleViewer and alert bar have contributed greatly to adherence by giving everyone insight into current scheduling expectations. Self-management through WebStation StatsViewer has also helped agents evaluate their own performance and take corrective action – before coaching is necessary. Streamlined Human Resource ActivityIn addition to giving agents and supervisors instant access to scheduling data, powering a refined weekly scheduling system, improving adherence and cutting handle time by nearly 15 percent, TotalView has also improved human resources activities. "The ability to export schedule data has allowed us to integrate call center staff schedules directly into our payroll and time-and-attendance management systems," the corporate spokesperson says. "Without a comprehensive workforce management solution, we would not be able to take our company and customer service delivery to the next level."Client Profile:Sector: Homeowner servicesContact Types: Voice, fax, e-mail, postal Contact Volume: 1.4 million annually Site Locations: Ft. Lauderdale, FL Agents: 130+ Benefits
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