Delivering Consistently High Quality of Service to All Clients with the Support of InVision Enterprise WFM

Problem description

GoExcellent AB was founded in the year 2000 as Excellent AB and since then has developed into one of the leading contact centre companies in the Nordic region. Following a period as a business unit within the Aditro Group, the company was re-launched as GoExcellent AB in summer 2009. Its core business is handling customer service and technical support calls on behalf of a disparate range of client companies. Approximately 2,500 agents located at 12 sites handle customer interactions during GoExcellent’s business hours, up to and including 24/7 operation. About 20 million customer contacts are handled per year by GoExcellent, with a mixture of inbound (70%) and outbound (30%) contacts. For GoExcellent, achieving Average Handling Time (AHT) targets is critical in the forecasting and scheduling process; AHT for inbound calls is typically a contractual commitment for each client and varies between 12 seconds and 10 minutes. Call handling accounts from 70% to about 100% of agents’ work. For the remaining time, agents deal with back office tasks such as e-mails and faxes.

For many years the workforce, 30% of which is part-time and 70% full-time, was scheduled with the help of a spreadsheet tool, which resulted in understaffing and overstaffing of agents. GoExcellent also experimented with other Workforce Management (WFM) software. In 2007, GoExcellent standardised on InVision Enterprise WFM to optimise the deployment of its agents. 12 planners on three centralised planning units in Copenhagen (Denmark), Helsinki (Finland) and Östersund (Sweden) are responsible for scheduling GoExcellent agents across the 12 sites. The central planners are supported by two local planners in Piteå and Kalmar (Sweden). For example, the planner in Piteå is responsible for scheduling all the agents working on one major client project, with these agents being based in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland.

GoExcellent required a tool to meet its requirements for forecasting, scheduling, monitoring and optimisation. The tool needed to be capable of handling long business hours, highly volatile volume of inbound calls, and the challenge of scheduling agents according to working practices which differ from country to country. The need to observe legal requirements which differ between countries and sometimes within countries added to this complexity. Moreover, the solution needed to support multi-site scheduling and to be capable of mapping virtual structures.

Project description

During GoExcellent´s analysis of available workforce management systems, InVision Enterprise WFM excelled in its comprehensive functionality. Despite its complete feature-set and broad range of scheduling functions, the software provides a convenient, consistent user interface and intuitive operation. Moreover, company-specific adaptations, such as a ‘script’ to calculate staffing requirements according to an AHT formula agreed with the client, can easily be integrated. GoExcellent found that the quality of the software is matched by the quality of InVision’s Professional Services, which include project management, consulting and technical support.

The software was installed first in Sweden in 2006, following which it was rolled out to the sites in Denmark, Finland and Norway. This process included training of planners and supervisors. A crucial aspect of the implementation was to ensure that the generated shifts comply with the relevant rules. These rules and guidelines can include laws, contractual or union provisions, right down to individual agreements with sites and agents. For instance, there are distinct union rules for each of the 3 Swedish contact centres due to the fact that they are located in different parts of the country.

Using the PhoneLink interface within the InVision software, all relevant statistical information for planning and scheduling, e.g. call times, call volumes and call handling time from the CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) system, is automatically transferred to the WFM system. Based on this historical data, the planners set up a detailed forecast of the expected working volumes and the required staff with the help of the InVision module ForecastPro. With the AutoScheduler, a central module of InVision’s solution, requirement-driven and optimised schedules are created at the push of a button while meeting all scheduling constraints. This is possible because AutoScheduler handles the entire scheduling and optimisation process in a single step, starting from the long-term assignment of working hours per day all the way to defining individual activities to be performed within the course of a day. The Infothek Interactive Schedule module provides the agents with the opportunity to swap shifts in an automated, paper-free process and to get at-a-glance information on their current schedules and upcoming changeovers to other activities. Agents are given their schedules online about 2-6 weeks in advance, depending on the activity (inbound, outbound, etc.) and the different union regulations of each country. GoExcellent’s planners use the OnlineCockpit module for intraday management and monitoring of schedules as well as for staff evaluation and performance analysis. KPI (Key Performance Indicators) comparisons can be done in real-time across all service centre units using OnlineCockpit.

Results

As a result of more accurate forecasting and optimised, multi-site scheduling, GoExcellent has been able to increase schedule efficiency by 10-25% depending on customer. Cost savings of 10 to 15% have been achieved, since periods of overstaffing have been significantly reduced and productivity increased. Agents have also welcomed the introduction of iWFM and have responded well to a system that takes into account their needs; iWFM has had a positive impact on employee satisfaction and reduced attrition at GoExcellent. This in turn has resulted in a further improvement in service levels and a corresponding increase in customer satisfaction.

The scheduling procedure has run smoothly ever since the software was implemented, and iWFM will continue to add value by virtue of its open, stable, and scalable technology.

GoExcellent has very flexible working schemes, which are different in all four countries where the company operates. It is therefore crucial that agent work-time accounts are managed accurately; otherwise agents may be under-paid or over-paid, which is bad for morale and bad for business. The processes related to recording and validating actual hours worked are closely linked to those of staff scheduling. The fact that InVision Enterprise WFM offers Time Management functions (sometimes known as Time and Attendance) fully integrated into the WFM system was appealing to GoExcellent and the company decided to add the Time Management modules to its installation of InVision Enterprise WFM. Implementation is planned for completion during 2010.