Spark NZ has changed the way their employees work by selecting a new customer experience company.
Spark went with Calabrio, a customer experience intelligence company, to supply a cloud-based workforce management solution as part of its Unified Front Line initiative.
This initiative introduces a new way of working at Spark, enabling employees to be cross skilled across multiple customer touchpoints and be part of an end-to-end "home base". The idea being that resources will flow to where the customers are: contact centres, retail stores and also at-home customer visits as demand requires.
The new workforce management system, which has embedded Data Explorer reporting, will replace an in-house platform and will enable the management of frontline staff, accommodating the peaks and troughs in customer demand. This will be across multiple touchpoints including voice, digital and in-person.
The new platform, named Calabrio ONE, covers around 1500 Spark employees in over 80 different locations, including contact centres, retail stores, and employees working from home.
With the new system rolled out, Spark says it hopes customers will receive a consistent response whichever channel they select, and employees will have the opportunity to become multi-skilled by working in different environments. The Calabrio WFM should enable the company to manage parallel demand by forecasting, scheduling, and dynamically moving capacity between channels and sites.
"The Unified Front Line is a new way of working at Spark, based on simplification, mobility and flexibility," says Sparks digital lead of consumer channels, Daniel Cooper.
"Using Calabrio workforce engagement management software enables powerful multi-channel agility to meet customer demand.
"Investing in the right tools is an important part of improving both the customer journey and the employee experience. Calabrio's unique industry experience of delivering unified workforce management functionality across an organisation's entire frontline was a key reason we selected this solution.
Employees can manage certain things from their smartphones, by using the Calabrio self-service mobile app, MyTime. This will supply employees with direct schedule and performance information.
They will have the ability to enter shift preferences, shift swap and process automatic holiday/leave requests, as well as move their own lunches and breaks via self-scheduling automation.
While potentially giving staff more control over their work/life balance, the mobile reporting capabilities will also provide team leaders with up-to-the-minute performance metrics for their devices.
"More often than not, when companies look to replace or upgrade their WFM they focus on replicating processes that worked yesterday, not what is best for tomorrow, or even today," says Calabrio regional director - APAC, Peter Farnsworth.
"Spark is adopting a new and innovative approach focusing on balancing customer and employee experience," he says
"It is a concept we have been advocating for years, and to have the opportunity to work with an organisation that shares the same beliefs as us is very exciting.
