The City of Vancouver anticipated its 3-1-1 call volumes would continue to increase as the city’s population grew and more citizens learned about the 3-1-1 service. With Citizen Service Representatives already providing high-quality service to 3-1-1 callers 365 days per year—in up to 175 different languages—leaders knew it was important to proactively keep agents happy and engaged. The City of Vancouver needed a flexible solution that could seamlessly handle call volume growth, maintain a high level of service quality, give employees a better work-life balance and inspire employees to work more efficiently. The new solution also needed to enable and support a new work-from-home program that was under development.

Using Calabrio Workforce Management, the City of Vancouver’s 3-1-1 contact centre now can consistently provide exceptional service for its growing caller base while increasing the satisfaction of the employees who work there. Calabrio enables managers to accurately schedule the right 3-1-1 resources at the right time to answer any forecasted call volume. And, to ensure every caller receives the same level of service, each employee now is trained as a generalist. Contact centre leaders also use metrics from Calabrio Workforce Management to coach employees on adherence and time management.

With Calabrio WFM, the City of Vancouver enhanced its employees’ work-life balance—achieving 0% agent turnover across a 16-month period—while successfully accommodating a massive growth in call volumes. In only two years, the call centre grew from 12 agents taking 165,000 calls the first year to more than 80 agents handling 820,000 calls annually the second year. In addition, within a single year, adherence levels rose 8%.