Optimizing Workforce Efficiency: Mason Companies Inc. Empowers Operations with Verint Workforce Management Professional

Mason Companies Inc. is a family-owned business that began more than 100 years ago. Today, Mason owns and operates 10 businesses that sell everything from shoes and apparel to bedding and electronics through its ecommerce websites and direct mail catalogs.

Mason remains committed to its customers, employees, and the Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin community where it is headquartered.

As a thriving multichannel retailer that has a contact center with approximately 330 agents between two locations, Mason struggled to forecast and schedule efficiently and effectively using spreadsheets. Scheduling was done from scratch each week and was taking about 20 hours. Mason began to look at workforce management solutions in early 2016, shortly after a director was appointed to oversee the contact center. The objective was to be able to forecast based on the fluctuation within the business day, and the ability to make schedule adjustments quickly.

Due to the nature of its business, Mason was dealing with seasonal spikes where staffing needed to adapt rapidly to deliver an outstanding customer experience. Consequently, Mason required a flexible solution to fit the seasonality of its operations. In addition, Mason knew it had to manage a culture change and training initiative as its leaders and agents had no previous workforce management software experience.

Soon after implementing Verint Workforce Management Professional, Mason started to see positive results in scheduling more efficiently. The administrative time to develop schedules was considerably reduced. Prior to implementing this solution, scheduling would take up to 20 hours per week. After, this was reduced to approximately two hours per week. Staffing variability was also improved, due to the ability to schedule in 30-minute increments.

During the benchmarking phase in preparation for introducing schedule adherence, the contact center agents were averaging around 60 percent adherence. After implementing Verint Workforce Management

Professional and introducing schedule adherence metrics and reporting to the contact center, the average moved to about 80 percent within 30 days. In addition, over time, the number of calls per agent improved by about seven percent due to implementation of better metrics for adherence and productivity.