Home Group’s WFM Transformation

Home Group is a housing association, social enterprise and charity and is one of the UK’s largest providers of high-quality housing and integrated housing, health and social care.

Operating for more than 80 years, the organisation aims to build homes, independence and aspirations. Today it supports over 125,000 customers who live in more than 55,000 homes across England and Scotland. In addition, during the last year, the group has worked with over 12,000 vulnerable people in its supported housing and health services.

Service quality forms a large focus for Home Group, which is proud to have been announced as the 7th best place to work in the UK, the 4th best in the Northeast and the 4th best for women.

Despite its high commitment to service quality, Home Group was facing challenges in its contact centre due to its former Workforce Management (WFM) tool reaching the end of its serviceable life.

With the contact centre growing to 150 seats, the original solution was no longer fit for purpose, and therefore Gavin Rogerson, Resource Planning Manager, was focused on identifying a solution that would meet the needs of the organisation, both now and in the future.

Explains Gavin: “The integration of our former WFM tool with our contact centre platform wasn’t there, nor were there reports or analytics that would give us insights into our workforce. While colleagues were able to use the scheduling tool, we did not have access to data that would help us optimise our performance or forecast call volumes. We also had no real-time visibility of our staff and therefore everything was ‘post event’, and very labour intensive.”

Without a clear view of their contact centre performance, allocating resources efficiently during spikes in call volumes would prove difficult, and Gavin was also concerned about additional risks, as he adds:

In addition, the implementation of a new WFM solution aimed to foster collaborative efforts in delivering a demand and resource plan, targeting a 90 achievement in the number of calls answered and responses to digital channels within SLA. Furthermore, the initiative aimed to support the delivery of 20 more efficiency by developing effective resource plans and colleague schedules aligned with customer demand across multiple service delivery channels.

Additionally, Gavin was keen to ensure any solution was able to take into account staff annual leave and in-office offline activities, while promoting a proactive approach to real-time management within those allocations.

After careful evaluation, Gavin opted to partner with Business Systems Ltd, leveraging the Crown Commercial Framework, to implement the Calabrio ONE Workforce Management solution.

Confirms Gavin: “We went through the Crown Commercial framework as it cuts out a lot of time from a procurement perspective, and I was keen to get this project up and running as soon as possible.”

Having identified Business Systems and its established reputation for excellence and expertise in Workforce Engagement Management, Gavin was impressed by the team’s track record and commitment to contact centre optimisation strategies and personalised, ongoing support.

The Calabrio ONE cloud-based solution was recommended by Business Systems, due to its comprehensive suite of features, including powerful forecasting, scheduling, and analytics capabilities. This would not only empower the team to optimise resource allocation, but enhance operational performance, importantly using real-time metrics.

Confirms Gavin: “The Calabrio ONE solution has powerful forecasting capabilities so we can accurately plan ahead and ensure we always have the right number of agents on hand to meet customer demand. Its predictive forecasting and automated scheduling also means we can create smarter schedules in minutes, plus we can now anticipate and adapt to call volumes in real time – which was a key objective.”

Calabrio ONE also has the advantage of providing agents with self-service scheduling through a convenient mobile app, which boosts agent engagement while also enabling them to take control of their work-life balance.

In addition, automating administrative workflows means valuable manager time is freed-up, allowing them to focus on agent coaching and engagement.

Throughout, Home Group received comprehensive assistance from Business Systems’ dedicated account management, during the implementation phase, which took just 8 weeks, in addition to comprehensive ongoing support and training.

Confirms Gavin, “We feel that we have been fully supported by the team at Business Systems. It wasn’t a case of ‘Here you go, plug it in’, I was supported throughout in the implementation phase, and beyond. The whole process has been absolutely fantastic, from a knowledge transfer and upskilling perspective. I’ve never experienced support like it before; it has been absolutely fantastic.”

Through partnering with Business Systems to implement Calabrio ONE, Home Group achieved significant improvements in productivity, forecast accuracy, and service quality. Now SLAs have been agreed around monthly forecasting accuracy, a feat that wasn’t previously possible.

Real-time data provides managers with actionable insights, enabling faster decision-making and proactive resource management, removing the need for any manual intervention. In fact, the transition from manual processes to a data-driven approach has resulted in a reduction in average call answering time and enhanced colleague engagement.

Explains Gavin: “I’ve been involved in around four implementations of this scale, not just with the Home Group, and this was by far the most straightforward, seamless and assured I’ve been involved with, and it’s delivered on all original objectives. Our frontline colleagues have access to a Microsoft Virtual Agent, which covers our knowledge base and is a great support for everyone. Information is readily available, and from a management point of view, we are seeing productivity improvements”.

Within six months of implementation, Home Group has achieved a return on investment (ROI), surpassing the two-year target that was originally envisioned with a project of this scale.

The transition to Calabrio ONE with Business Systems has helped to transform Home Group into a data-driven organisation, driving faster and more effective decision-making. Dashboards provide customisable performance metrics, empowering users to monitor and optimise their performance effectively.

With the ability to monitor contact centre activities and resources in one place, it is creating significant efficiencies when compared to the former manual approach used. Real-time data now provides managers with a single, unified view of the contact centre’s operations while workforce planners can create fast, efficient schedules at the click of a button.

Confirms Gavin: “Our goal has always been to provide the best end user experience – it might be a bit of a cliché but happy colleagues equal happy customers. We want our people to be happy, we want them to know where they’re at and this solution, which is so easy to use, helps us achieve this.”

Overnight, the partnership and new WFM solution has given Home Group the power to make changes quickly, removing all manual processes. Adds Gavin: “We went from effectively pen and paper, to a state-of-the-art digital solution. We have seen our average speed of call answering improve, and now have far greater visibility than before.”

“We are a relatively small contact centre, however I love the functionality that we now have. If we compare where we were two years ago to where we are today, the difference is remarkable. We are really happy with the relationship we have with Business Systems, and the support we receive from Shaunna, Paul and the wider team; I have no concerns moving forward and feel we have made very good decisions as part of our relationship.”

Home Group’s partnership with Business Systems and the implementation of Calabrio ONE have not only modernised their contact centre operations but also laid the foundation for future innovation.

In the future, Home Group plans to leverage the contact centre’s WFM transformation experience to drive transformation in other areas of the business. By embracing tools like data Explorer and Power BI, Home Group aims to further enhance operational efficiency and customer satisfaction across all departments.

Signalling a commitment to continuous improvement.

Business Systems specialises in providing mission critical Enterprise Communications Solutions to enable digital transformations for contact centres.

We provide Monitoring & Compliance and Workforce Engagement Management solutions along with the underlying Cloud Communications software and infrastructure needed to deliver them.

Our professional services team work closely with customers such as UK Power Networks, Zen Internet and Leeds Building Society.

We represent organisations such as Calabrio and NICE as well as developing our own technology.