Customer Success
Furniture Retailer | Print |

One of the World's Top Furniture Retailers

As one of the world’s top furniture retailers, this clients sells home furnishings and accessories at more than 200 stores in over 30 countries. In addition to the storefront locations, they handle sales via telephone, mail-order and online.

To keep the storefront locations focused on in-person sales and service, the company implemented a strategy designed to centralize telephone and multimedia handling (e-mail, fax, mail-in, etc.) at three contact center locations. When these centers were originally opened, forecasting was managed using Excel spreadsheets and agent scheduling was set on a fixed rotation pattern.

“There was no flexibility in agent scheduling and little analysis of the forecast to actual caller demand,” said a corporate representative. “Reflective analysis was time consuming and difficult because we didn’t have up-to-date, relevant information.”

As a result, the company turned to the IEX® TotalView® Workforce Management system, which is designed to improve forecasting, scheduling and agent management processes.

Accurate Forecasting

Forecasting accuracy is critical to the retailer’s business model. “A missed call is a potentially missed revenue opportunity,” said a corporate spokesperson. “TotalView has helped us significantly reduce the number of dropped calls and repeat dialing instances by ensuring our forecasts are accurate.”

The patented forecasting algorithms of TotalView have also helped this retailer improve the way it calculates actual handle time (AHT). Previously, AHT was calculated based on average talk time across all contact types. With TotalView, the company is able to drill down to determine the number of calls and the AHT for each type of call, during any given interval of the day.

“Now we can take into account the AHT variance during a sales promotion, upon release of a new catalog or at holidays like Christmas,” said a corporate spokesperson.

Flexible Scheduling

Scheduling flexibility is key to maximizing resources. Prior to installing TotalView, the center relied on fixed schedule rotations that didn’t always align resources to actual demand. Using TotalView, the organization was able to implement a flexible scheduling method.

“Flexible scheduling is a much more efficient process,” said a corporate spokesperson.

“Using this method, we’ve been able to significantly reduce periods of understaffing and overstaffing -- which has allowed us to maximize resources -- gaining efficiencies without increasing headcount.”

Streamlined Training

Before TotalView was installed, the center trained new agents on all four skill types over a 3-week period. Now the company trains its agents on the two simpler skills and then completes the remaining sessions after the agents are more familiar with the company’s systems and processes.

“This process has allowed us to save a significant amount of time and money on training while helping us realize productivity gains much more quickly,” said a corporate spokesperson.

Skill Based Schedules

In addition to streamlining the center’s training processes, TotalView has enabled the organization to build optimal skill-based schedules. They use TotalView to determine the contact volume based on skill type and then create schedules using the demand forecast. This ensures the right mix of agents is in the right place, at the right time, for efficient, skills-based scheduling.

Effective Time Management

“With TotalView, we’re better able to plan and take on additional contact handling without the need to increase resources over and above what is needed to handle the workload,” said a corporate spokesperson “And we’re making the most of quiet times, effectively planning off-phone activities while achieving service level goals.” In fact, they previously had the equivalent of four full-time employees (FTEs) dedicated to back office work. Now the centers schedule agents in a low-priority queue that they can draw from if call volumes spike throughout the day.

“We’re scheduling off-phone activities during periods of low call demand, which has helped us significantly increase agent productivity while boosting morale,” said a corporate spokesperson.

Improved Schedule Adherence

The center’s ability to manage resources against the set daily plan often determines whether or not service goals will be met. The organization uses the TotalView Historical Adherence Module to ensure its centers consistently meet service goals. In fact, since the introduction of the Historical Adherence module, schedule conformance has improved by nearly 20 percentage points, moving from 75 to 93 percent.

Client Profile:

Company: Retail Furniture & Accessory Sales
Sector: Retail
Contact Types: Sales & Service
Contact Volume: More than 1.5 million
Site Locations: Stockport, Dearne Valley and Peterborough
Agents: 200+

Benefits

  • Reduced the number of dropped calls and repeat dials with more accurate forecasts
  • Adopted a flexible scheduling model that has significantly improved resource usage
  • Streamlined the new agent training process to reduce costs and boost productivity
  • Introduced a skill-based scheduling model to optimize resource usage
  • Boosted schedule adherence from 75 to 93 percent