Case Study: Algar Tech

CUSTOMER PROFILE

THE CHALLENGE

Since 2014, Algar Tech has been expanding its outsourcing services for various industries. At that stage, the company had been using NICE Workforce Management (WFM) to optimize its contact center front office operations successfully for more than a decade. However, early in the expansion period, it became clear that the back office lacked reliable productivity metrics precisely as they became more and more important to the company’s success. Unlike the company’s inbound call centers, there was no visibility into the actual activities of back office analysts, the efficiency of back office processes, or the value of the applications used.

So, in 2016, it was natural to again turn to NICE for performance optimization in the back office. Combining the desktop monitoring capabilities of NICE Desktop Analytics with WFM in the back office, Algar Tech finally had online visibility into back office activities at the agent level. The results were dramatic improvements in agent productivity and workforce allocation.

After some time, there were a series of promotions among the workforce planning team, as well as natural employee turnover. As there was no formal training in place for managers and planning teams to learn effective utilization of the NICE WFM platform, knowledge gaps slowly developed. This also led to inefficient workforce planning processes, which in turn further prevented relevant teams from leveraging the full potential of the WFM platform.

Algar Tech saw its primary workforce management challenge of 2018 to be regaining full usage of the NICE WFM technology. Success would allow the company to establish better controls, increase productivity and optimize scheduling.

THE SOLUTION

NICE Workforce Management provided Algar Tech reliable, consistent and objective metrics in the front office regarding agent activity, skills, and motivation. In the back office, real-time data on the total number of agent desktops in active, idle and locked states, and the duration of those states, is provided in a single dashboard.

Insights from more granular activity monitoring in both the front and back offices are available in the WFM platform. Ideally this can be presented as performance and schedule adherence reports, revealing which employees are meeting company objectives and which are not. Similarly, WFM can promote measurable cost-effectiveness in the workforce, with better forecasting and agents assigned where they are needed most.

Corrective Measures and Revitalizing WFM

The first step in Algar Tech’s campaign to revitalize its planning processes and get the full benefit from NICE WFM was precisely identifying the gaps and weaknesses that had developed. To this end, the company collaborated with A5, NICE’s business partner in Brazil. A5 provides consulting, training, implementation, and support for NICE interaction analytics, WFM and automation solutions.

In a collaborative effort, Algar Tech and A5 examined forecasting and scheduling methodologies and planning processes for the front office teams, identifying where the NICE WFM solution was not being leveraged. With the information collected, the company and A5 redesigned ineffective processes and enabled features that had been neglected.

In part, the “reboot” included integrating alternative technologies that made use of agent schedules exported by NICE SmartSync to block applications on an agent’s device. This was done to enforce compliance with the company’s plans regarding employee activities and occupancy, which also served to reinforce schedule adherence.

The process of change management was challenging and required a great deal of engagement at the executive levels, in light of the expected effects on processes and staffing levels. In order to ensure that the different teams were primed for the changes across Algar Tech, the transition took four months and involved consulting and training at all relevant levels.

Time Spent Efficiently and Effectively

Prior to implementing the new processes, Algar Tech saw only 38.4% of its front office operations meeting schedule adherence targets. After the implementation of the redesigned scheduling processes, along with Algar Tech taking full advantage of the NICE WFM solution, 85% of operations currently meet schedule adherence goals (a 122% improvement).

The changes also led to more accurate forecasting, with greater visibility into agent behaviors and more robust workforce analytics. This also came with another significant result—a 65% reduction in overtime hours.

Thus, fully applying NICE WFM to the problem of better scheduling at Algar Tech led to agent time spent more efficiently, which improves productivity. Increased productivity per agent, in turn, brings significant savings to the company by eliminating overtime pay and periods of overstaffing.

Expanding the Success Out

Algar Tech reported that the transparency in individual agent performance and scheduling made possible by NICE WFM resulted in higher employee engagement in its front office. Given this intangible outcome and the concrete adherence results noted above, the company decided to repeat the successful WFM redesign.

Algar Tech and A5 are currently working on expanding the project. They are assessing processes and adding teams using the same methodology for optimizing outbound communications and back office operations.