E.ON Increases Agent Availability with Flexible Scheduling

90%

answer rate
for inbound calls

100%

response rate
for non-phone inquiries

30%

decrease in time
spent processing emails

Shorter backlogs
and wait times

At a Glance

Company E.ON

Industry Energy

Location Europe

Products Used Calabrio WFM

About E.ON

Based in Essen, Germany and one of Europe’s largest, most innovative energy companies, E.ON plays a leading role in shaping a clean, digital, decentralised world of energy. More than 50 million customers purchase electricity, gas, digital products or solutions for electric mobility, energy efficiency and climate protection from E.ON.

CONTACT SALES TEAM

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Improving forecasting and increasing scheduling flexibility turns up agent and customer satisfaction

Challenge

E.ON’s contact centre is an extremely busy one. It receives more than 1.2 million inquiries each year via phone, chat and email—2,500 to 4,000 phone calls per day.

Yet, rather than optimising critical business processes, contact centre leaders spent an inordinate amount of time on basic administrative tasks. They couldn’t follow up on things as much as they wanted. They struggled to handle calls on time. And they lacked the control needed to ensure their customer service advisors spent their time on the right things.

Solution

With Calabrio WFM, contact centre leaders now create the accurate forecasts upon which E.ON’s entire customer service operation relies—forecasts that even take into account projected email volumes.

The detailed forecast, for example, supports scheduling, promotions and other mailshots, while the long-term forecast helps determine the following year’s customer service budget. Managers can build custom forecast reports that identify when the contact centre receives the most inquiries or when the highest rate of sick leave occurs. Advisors also use the new forecasts to plan their leave.

In addition, Calabrio’s flexible scheduling capabilities let E.ON better distribute its advisors, so they’re available whenever and however customers contact them. Advisor shifts now can vary between six and ten hours in length, with everything—who will answer the phone or chat service and monitor Facebook during any given period—scheduled ahead of time. Calabrio’s scheduling also lets agents easily access their current schedule in real time, so they can quickly see what they need to do, and when.

We couldn’t have achieved our current level of availability without Calabrio WFM and its flexible scheduling. Our workload has been evened out, which has in turn evened out our response rate.”

Anette Jonsson
Group Director for Business, Analytics and Planning
E.ON

Result

A better work environment in E.ON’s contact centre has led to a higher customer satisfaction rate driven by more satisfied employees.

E.ON now regularly achieves its target of answering 90% of inbound calls and 100% of inquiries received via other channels—all while spending 30% less time processing emails. Advisor workloads have evened out, with advisors enjoying more productive hours on even the busiest of days. Backlogs also have shrunk, which makes wait times shorter because fewer people call back.