No In-House Installation Required; Includes Online Schedule Access for Agents
ST. LOUIS, MO (October 30, 2002) – Pipkins Inc. today announced the availability of WorkforceScheduling.com, an Internet-based workforce management service for call centers based on Pipkins’ award-winning Vantage Point software. The new service provides Vantage Point’s full database, forecasting and scheduling functionality over the Web by affordable monthly or yearly subscription, eliminating the need for call centers to purchase, install and maintain the system in-house. It also includes a Web portal that enables agents to access their work schedules and request modifications online.
WorkforceScheduling.com is designed for call centers with fewer than 100 agents, outsourcers that partition their operations into comparably sized teams, and internal or external call centers with a mobile workforce.
Using the same engines as Vantage Point, the service enables supervisors to calculate future staffing demands, run complex “what if” scenarios, implement skills-based routing for optimal call handling, and generate staff schedules reflecting seasonal changes, day-to-day variations in peak load, and special promotions that will increase incoming calls. Supervisors also have instant online access to all reports and call volume histories.
The Web portal allows agents to view their schedules, request modifications or vacations, sign up for overtime, exchange schedules with other agents, and report absences over the Internet without taking supervisors’ time by phone. Supervisors can approve requests, make schedule changes, and record exceptions with a click.
“The WorkforceScheduling.com portal makes agent communication much faster and easier, and the system’s scheduling function has reduced the process of creating a quarterly schedule from 80 hours of work to just one hour,” said Clay Myers, contact center support supervisor at Fredericks of Hollywood, which is using Pipkins’ subscription service for its 100-agent call center in Phoenix. “We don’t have the technical staff to manage a system like this ourselves, so the fact that we can get all this functionality and more without installing an entire infrastructure is a major advantage.”
The service can be accessed from any computer via Web browser. It eliminates upfront investment, long implementations, internal IT staff involvement, and long-term commitment. Monthly and yearly subscriptions are priced on a per-agent and per-supervisor basis.
About Vantage Point
Pipkins’ Vantage Point workforce management solution forecasts workload and schedules staff for single or multi-site call centers using a proprietary optimization algorithm, advanced skill-based modeling, and exclusive historical trend analysis that fine-tunes forecasts for special events such as direct mail drops. The program integrates with leading ACDs, e-mail response systems and other multimedia queuing devices for data collection across multiple sites and time zones. It also provides a full complement of default and custom reports, with an open system design that allows managers to access call center data using any third party SQL reporting package. All Vantage Point functions are available through the WorkforceScheduling.com online subscription service.
About Pipkins Inc.
Pipkins Inc., founded in 1984, is the leading supplier of workforce management software and services to the call center industry. Its Vantage Point product enables managers to solve the complicated operational issues in today’s multi-faceted call center environment. Pipkins’ systems forecast and schedule more than 100,000 agents in over 300 locations across all industries worldwide. The company is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. For more information, visit www.pipkins.com.