WFM in the front and back office

How Thames Water’s customer services operation improved customer contact planning and forecasting efficiency by over 100% by working with Sabio to implement a Workforce Management solution across its front and back-office operations.

Business Challenge

At Thames Water’s Customer Services operation in Swindon, the two main parts of the business – the front-office contact centre and back-office function – were effectively working in isolation, with separate staffing needs, different technology platforms and distinct employee cultures. As part of the company’s ‘New Start’ programme to adopt a unified approach across its service operation, Thames Water needed to ensure the effective planning and forecasting of work levels across both parts of its customer-facing business. A key driver for this initiative was the need to optimise customer service levels and improve the company’s ranking in the annual Ofwat water utility service rankings.

Sabio Solution

Thames Water wanted to work with an experienced contact centre technology partner to implement Workforce Management as part of a broader Workforce Optimisation strategy, so it selected Sabio to implement a WFM solution based on Verint’s Impact 360 suite. Sabio worked with Thames Water to deliver their vision of a centralised planning and forecasting hub, allowing it to schedule activities for all of its 700 customer service employees across both its contact centre front-office and back-office operations.

Results Delivered

• Sabio’s solution has delivered a number of key operational benefits, including:
• Enabling a 100 percent plus productivity improvement from Thames Water’s specialist planning and scheduling team, with optimized scheduling adherence and reduced  absences leading directly to annual savings of upwards of £250,000
• Workforce Management project enabled other initiatives to deliver a 120 FTE reduction
• Successfully automated over 20,000 holiday requests – freeing up over 50 percent of team leaders’ time, and allowing an increased focus on coaching

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