Ninzi-Connect Software (formerly Multi-Connect) was one of the first suppliers of Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) equipment to the South African market, when the company was originally established in 1989. This was followed up by introducing the workforce management product now known as eWFM (originally TCS) to the marketplace.
In order to overcome the complexity of a multiple site, multiple language contact centre environment, outsource customer support provider, Mindpearl, required a flexible and easy-to-use scheduling tool, which is why the company chose Ninzi-Connect Software's Aspect eWorkforce Management Version 7.
Mindpearl says its key focus has always been on excellent service and customer care, to the extent of providing a 24/7 multilingual operation for its client base across the globe.
With three sites deployed worldwide in order to facilitate the 'follow-the-sun' policy, and with Mindpearl offering services in a multitude of languages - including all major European and Asian languages - the company was faced with challenges in regards to the issue of scheduling staff in the contact centres.
Apart from the obvious challenge of scheduling across three call centres, each of which operates in a separate time zone, there is a need to ensure that sufficient coverage exists not only for each of their clients, but for each of the many languages they support, while also having to deal with the many complex labour contracts that exist between the company and its staff, which can lead to complications in the schedule drafting process.
Ninzi's Aspect eWorkforce Management was chosen because it is flexible, comprehensive and modular, allowing clients to deploy functionality in phases, as and when it is needed, the company says.
"The installation of the eWorkforce Management solution took us a total of just two days, with training for the Mindpearl staff on its operation completed in a further four days," says Ninzi-Connect support consultant, Liz Mathai.
Mathai points out that the solution consists of the 'Core' workforce management solution, which provides tools to perform accurate forecasting, enhanced scheduling and robust schedule management as well as performance monitoring in both a single and multi-skill environment, as well as a number of modular bolt-ons, such as Multi-Site Edition for virtual contact centres, Empower for agent self-service and Perform for adherence monitoring.
With an advanced forecasting component designed to predict call volumes, to calculate staffing requirements and to make budget projections based on historical call volume and handle time data, the software can forecast incoming call volumes on a monthly, weekly, daily, half-hourly, or quarter-hourly basis, she adds.
Service targets and KPIs can be set for each business line, and the software is structured in such a way as to enable users to monitor those target achievements both by individual business line and with a consolidated view for each intraday period across the day.
"One of the challenges we had to deal with was that we had to decrease the scheduling time frame to a shorter period in order to run schedules quicker, and we had to set up the various time zones correctly per site," she says.
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