Case Study: Call Center
A call center that expanded from one healthcare client to multiple insurers and financial firms improved productivity and reduced labor costs by adopting WorkforceHub, a SaaS workforce management system that enhanced scheduling precision, decreased unplanned overtime, enforced breaks, and accommodated employee preferences, replacing an outdated premise-based system and enabling strategic forecasting and efficient shift planning through customizable templates.
Call centers that optimize time and labor can significantly increase productivity. This was the intent of the company covered in this case study, a customer service center that had launched eight years previously with one healthcare client. After adopting WorkforceHub, the company grew dramatically, providing inbound and outbound support for six health insurers, three nationwide financial clients, and two auto insurance firms.
In optimizing time and labor, the business had five specific goals:
- 1.Increase scheduling precision to improve efficiency
- 2.Decrease unplanned overtime
- 3.Enforce employee breaks
- 4.Reduce labor costs while still providing a high level of service
- 5.Accommodate employee scheduling preferences to boost morale and reduce turnover
About the Client
The company had purchased a premise-based system five years prior to the study. While sophisticated at the time, the manufacturer had not kept up with the latest technology, diminishing its value over time. Updates were expensive and system downtime was common when issues arose.
Solution: WorkforceHub
The owners sought to upgrade to a call center workforce management system that allowed them to incorporate best practices. After using a legacy system, they wanted to try a SaaS platform, predicting that improved efficiency would give them a competitive edge. Their payroll provider introduced them to WorkforceHub, a solution tailored for small businesses. After a demo, the owner decided to try it for a month or two, taking advantage of the free trial and no-contract requirement.
Scheduling Precision
The management team focused on shift planning and found it easy to create schedules with templates. Managers could create schedules for both busy and slow periods, and build templates for each department, client, employee group, and other variables. This eliminated coverage gaps, overstaffing, and departmental imbalances.
Strategic Forecasting
The team began using reporting and analytics. WorkforceHub tracks time and labor metrics, allowing managers to evaluate attendance, identify trends, and forecast needs. The value of the data increases over time.
Overtime and Break Management
Unplanned overtime had previously resulted in high labor costs. WorkforceHub's overtime alerts allowed managers to prevent unplanned overtime before it happened, keeping labor expenses stable and supporting expansion.
Schedule Enforcement
The business improved its employee timesheet process. Previously, employees would estimate start and end times if they forgot to punch in or out. WorkforceHub's schedule adherence function prevents employees from punching outside prescribed hours and enforces authorized break and meal durations. Tardies and absences are monitored and controlled, and buddy-punching is impossible. The firm now only pays employees for time actually worked.
Accurate Timecards and Hassle-Free Payroll
WorkforceHub has intelligent clocking features. When employees attempt to clock in, only options relevant to their current status are presented (shift start, paid break, unpaid meal, or shift end). This automation has improved timecard accuracy and saved managers time previously spent fixing timecards.
Accommodate Preferences While Retaining Quality of Service
Call centers generally have a high attrition rate due to the nature of the work. Successful call centers attract competent employees, train them quickly, pay competitively, and maintain low turnover. Flexibility is key to keeping employees happy.
Schedule Flexibility
Accommodating employee scheduling preferences allowed the company to keep starting wages stable, unlike competitors who had to raise wages to attract applicants. This resulted in labor cost savings and improved retention, with benefits compounding as the workforce expanded.
Advanced Schedule Management
WorkforceHub allows supervisors to set minimum/maximum hour preferences per employee. Automated time-off requests streamline the PTO workflow. Employee Self-Service (ESS) enables employees to view schedules, open shifts, and accruals from any mobile device. The company also allowed fully trained employees within the same skill set group to handle their own shift trades, which was successful and became a permanent policy. This flexibility boosted morale and reduced turnover.
Employee Work/Life Balance
Before the policy change, employees were hesitant to request multiple shift trades per week. Now, with management's trust, they have more schedule flexibility. Employees value this perk and are less likely to leave for slightly higher wages elsewhere. Higher morale has improved service quality, as employees can focus on quality work and meeting production goals.
WorkforceHub Fuels Growth
With an optimized workforce, the owners plan to expand services to include order processing and lead response, confident that WorkforceHub will support this growth.
Convert Your Clients Today
As a Swipeclock partner, you can offer WorkforceHub to clients operating call centers. WorkforceHub streamlines scheduling, automates time and attendance, maintains regulatory compliance, and reduces labor costs. The platform also benefits partners by freeing up time to focus on other tasks. With the new Conversion Tool, transitioning clients to the platform is easier and faster than ever.
Related
Time, Attendance & Scheduling: The Beauty of Self-Service
Swipeclock’s WorkforceHub is a comprehensive, cloud-based self-service Workforce Management solution that empowers employees with tools like time card management, remote punch in/out, PTO tracking, and automated scheduling, while helping supervisors automate schedule creation, shift approvals, and overtime alerts to improve efficiency, reduce labor costs, and boost employee morale through streamlined HR functions including recruitment and performance reviews.
Employee Scheduling Software for Small Business
WorkforceHub Scheduling is an employee scheduling software tailored for small businesses that streamlines creating compliant, strategic schedules with smart shift recommendations, automated conflict resolution, labor segmentation integration, and self-service features to enhance schedule adherence, shift swapping, and real-time notifications.
Self-Service Workforce Management With WorkforceHub
Swipeclock’s WorkforceHub is a cloud-based self-service workforce management and HRMS solution that empowers employees with tools like remote timecard management and PTO tracking while automating supervisors’ tasks such as scheduling and overtime alerts, ultimately improving efficiency, reducing costs, and boosting employee morale.
WorkforceHub Lowers Costs For Human Resources Functions
WorkforceHub, a cloud-based Human Resources Management System by Swipeclock, streamlines HR functions for employees, managers, and HR teams through features like time tracking, scheduling, payroll access, and onboarding, enabling organizations to reduce HR-related costs by up to 20% through decreased overtime, optimized shift scheduling, and lower hiring expenses.
The Intuitive WorkforceHub Employee Dashboard
WorkforceHub by Swipeclock is an intuitive, unified HR portal featuring customizable employee and manager dashboards with clock-in/out, scheduling, time off, payroll, communication, and engagement tools, designed to streamline time tracking, compliance, and labor cost management for employers.
Case Study: Retail Employee Scheduling and Timekeeping
Northwest Outfitters, a small retail sporting goods chain, leveraged Swipeclock's WorkforceHub—including TimeSimplicity for automated scheduling, TimeWorksPlus for time and attendance tracking, and mobile Employee Self Service—to streamline complex multi-department scheduling, reduce unplanned overtime, improve compliance, and empower part-time employees across five locations, resulting in significant cost savings and managerial time efficiency.