The Human Services Agency of San Francisco Experiences Total Improvement with Verint Workforce Management Professional

Results

Improved calculations for shrinkage, and for forecasting and scheduling.
Provides simpler, more efficient scheduling models.
Enables schedules to be easily modified to close coverage gaps.

Opportunity

The Human Services Agency of San Francisco, California is comprised of a number of critical programs that the city’s residents rely on every day. These include help with food, health insurance, supportive care, financial assistance, childcare, and more. Two programs run by the agency, CalFresh and Medi-Cal, combined their contact centers, which created scheduling challenges.

Up to that point, both programs were using spreadsheets, which were not sufficient. Even worse, 75 percent of CalFresh and Medi-Cal employees (who did not work the phones) were monitored with separate spreadsheets. The contact centers were able to determine how groups and agents could be moved to assure sufficient coverage, but the process was very manual, disorganized, tedious, and time-consuming. Thus, an effective scheduling tool became a priority.

Taninha Ferreira, the systems and data operations manager, had started her career as a contact center analyst, so she recognized the value that a forecasting tool could provide and began the search for one that would meet their needs. “I wanted something where the reports were user-friendly, easy to generate, and gave me the information I needed,” Ferreira said.

The challenge was finding a solution that would improve the quality and efficiency of forecasting and scheduling, while also supporting the unique organizational structure of The Human Services Agency of San Francisco. “We have often faced situations where we purchased tools designed for private sector operations, and these tended to be a lot simpler,” Ferreira explained. “Our systems are very complex and require a lot more customization, so I was looking for a solution where that would not be an issue.”

The search for a better technology solution began and took several months, a result of the procedures that government agencies must follow in procurement. Participating vendors were asked a series of questions about how their applications would meet the agency’s needs, and several companies provided demos.

Solution

Once the process was complete, The Human Services Agency of San Francisco chose Verint Workforce Management Professional.

Today, The Human Services Agency of San Francisco is staffed with over 500 contact center agents using Verint Workforce Management Professional to improve forecasting and scheduling.

"In this type of environment, there are so many different things that might happen in a given day. The value of Verint Workforce Management Professional for us is the transparency it provides — everyone knows what everyone is doing."
Taninha Ferreira Operational Manager, The Human Services Agency of San Francisco

Benefits

Verint Workforce Management Professional’s customization and reporting capabilities were key reasons why The Human Services Agency of San Francisco selected the solution. The agency’s supervisors now have insight into individual and group schedules, as well as the ability to review critical reports.

Since The Human Services Agency of San Francisco builds contact center schedules out several months in advance, it needed to accurately account for resources and determine the number of hours employees spend in training, meetings, overtime, calling out sick, etc.

The implementation of Verint Workforce Management Professional in the cloud has brought The Human Services Agency of San Francisco more visibility, accuracy, and transparency on the agents’ schedules.

When employees take vacation or sick days, Verint Workforce Management Professional makes it easy to immediately and automatically shift schedules to close the coverage gaps.

Following the selection of Verint Workforce Management Professional, Ferreira says The Human Services Agency of San Francisco has experienced “total improvement.” Schedules are built out months in advance, so employees (and their supervisors) always know when they have meetings, when they should be in training, and what they should be doing each day.

The solution is also very useful in calculating shrinkage and planning forecasts and schedules to respond to the needs of the customer base.

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