Significant resource planning efficiencies help European customer service outsourcer release valuable time back into customer care.
Calabrio, the workforce performance company, has announced that Ascensos is using Calabrio ONE to schedule 2,500 agents at 7 contact centre locations in the UK, Romania, Turkey, and South Africa. Agents handle on average 170,000 contacts every week. Calabrio’s automated workforce management (WFM) technology has transformed resource planning efficiency at Ascensos, saving the company 375 hours every week—the equivalent of 13 full-time employees—while dramatically boosting staff engagement through self-service.
Established only 10 years ago in Motherwell, Scotland, Ascensos has expanded its operations significantly and is today a leading European contact centre outsourcer in consumer retail. Ascensos’ 170,000 contacts per week are predominantly voice (59%), followed by email (20%), live chat (10%), social media (10%), and WhatsApp (1%). The company was looking for a more efficient way to schedule its growing workforce and selected Calabrio ONE primarily for ease-of-use and scalability and to eliminate time-consuming manual processes.
Every week, agents schedule 4,700 breaks and 1,100 holiday requests using Calabrio’s self-service app while team managers utilise the WFM software to arrange 1,700 offline activities such as meetings, 1-2-1 sessions, and ‘return to work’ coaching for example, after parental leave or a career break.
Paul Pearson, Head of Resource Planning at Ascensos commented, “Along with increased operational efficiencies, we have noticed dramatic improvements to employee engagement thanks to the flexibility of the Calabrio ONE solution. Recent feedback from staff reveals how having a 12-month forward view of schedules is ‘brilliant’. Using self-scheduling, agents can easily create their ideal work-life balance, booking a long weekend away or swapping shifts with a colleague in an instant. Meanwhile, automatic notifications for opportunities such as overtime give everyone a level playing field that is transparent and fair.”
Calabrio WFM has transformed resource planning efficiency at Ascensos. Whereas previously, the majority of scheduling and forecasting processes were handled manually, automation has yielded dramatic time savings of 375 hours a week, the equivalent of 13 full-time employees. Ascensos estimates that 3 minutes have been shaved from each action carried out using Calabrio WFM. This equates to 22,500 minutes (375 hours) saved per week, extra time that agents can devote to improving customer service.
Dave Orstad, SVP, Professional Services and Support, at Calabrio added, “For outsourcers like Ascensos with multiple clients and client Service Level Agreements (SLAs), robust, flexible workforce solutions are an absolute must-have. Our true-cloud technology is designed to tackle the major challenges that contact centres face today including the rising demand for multi-channel service and hybrid working models. Meanwhile our collaborative approach to working with partners guarantees that Ascensos will always benefit from the latest innovations in technology that flex as the business grows.”
About Ascensos
Ascensos was established in 2013 in Motherwell, Scotland to transform the customer experience by bringing a fresh and personal approach to customer care. Today, the company’s network of contact centres spans from the UK to Romania, Turkey and South Africa, with teams working together to support UK and international consumer brands. For more information, visit https://www.ascensos.com/
About Calabrio
Calabrio is a trusted ally to leading brands. The digital foundation of customer-centric contact centres, Calabrio helps enrich and interpret human interactions, empowering the contact centre as a brand guardian.
We maximise agent performance, exceed customer expectations, and boost workforce efficiency using connected data, AI-fuelled analytics, automated workforce management and personalised coaching.
Only Calabrio ONE unites workforce optimisation (WFO), agent engagement and business intelligence solutions into a true-cloud, fully integrated suite that adapts to your business.
For more information visit Calabrio.
