Spark NZ Selects Calabrio as Part of Unified Front Line Initiative

Calabrio, the customer experience intelligence company, has been selected by Spark, New Zealand’s largest telecommunications and digital services company, to supply a cloud-based workforce management (WFM) solution as part of its Unified Front Line initiative.

The initiative is a new way of working at Spark where employees are cross-skilled across multiple customer touchpoints and are part of an end to end “homebase”. Resources will flow to where the customer is: contact centres, retail stores and at-home customer visits as demand requires.

The new Calabrio WFM, with embedded Data Explorer reporting, replaces an on-premises platform and will manage the workload of frontline staff to accommodate peaks and troughs in customer demand across omni-channel touchpoints including voice, digital and in-person.

The Calabrio ONE platform covers some 1500 Spark employees in over 80 different locations including the company’s contact centres, retail stores and those working from home. Calabrio WFM enables the company to manage parallel demand by forecasting, scheduling, and dynamically moving capacity between channels and sites.

Customers receive a consistent response and high level of service whichever channel they select, and employees have the opportunity to become multi-skilled by working in different environments.

With employee experience a key priority for Spark, the Calabrio self-service mobile app, MyTime, will provide advanced employee engagement options by empowering agents with schedule and performance information direct to their smartphones. Employees have the ability to enter shift preferences, shift swap and process automatic holiday/leave requests, as well as easily move their own lunches and breaks via self-scheduling automation.

This self-service functionality gives staff more control of their work/life balance. Additionally, WFM reporting capabilities will provide team leaders with up-to-the-minute key performance metrics to their mobile devices, providing real-time visibility of the workforce and supporting better decision making.

Daniel Cooper, Digital Lead – Consumer Channels from Spark commented, “The Unified Front Line (UFL) is a new way of working at Spark, based on simplification, mobility and flexibility. Using Calabrio workforce engagement management (WEM) software enables powerful multi-channel agility to meet customer demand. Investing in the right tools is an important part of improving both the customer journey, and the employee experience. Calabrio’s unique industry experience of delivering unified workforce management functionality across an organisation’s entire frontline was a key reason we selected this solution.”

Peter Farnsworth, Regional Director – APAC, Calabrio concluded, “More often than not, when companies look to replace or upgrade their WFM they focus on replicating processes that worked yesterday not what is best for tomorrow, or even today. Spark are adopting a new and innovative approach focusing on balancing customer and employee experience. It is a concept we have been advocating for years, and to have the opportunity to work with an organization that shares the same beliefs as us is very exciting.”

Calabrio recently unveiled the new Calabrio ONE for the new era, with the integrated WFM solution at its heart that combines the “best of the best” from Teleopti WFM and Calabrio WFM, enabling organisations to better empower, educate and lead today’s workforce.

About Calabrio

Calabrio is the customer experience intelligence company that empowers organisations to enrich human interactions. The scalability of our cloud platform allows for quick deployment of remote work models—and it gives our customers precise control over both operating costs and customer satisfaction levels. Through AI-driven analytics, Calabrio uncovers customer behaviour and sentiment and derives compelling insights from the contact centre. Organisations choose Calabrio for its ability to understand customer needs and the overall experience it provides, from implementation to ongoing support.

Find more at calabrio.com