Reliable daily implementation of the policies with the ever-changing WFM data was clearly the key to success. It was also clear that goal could not be achieved without new management tools and simplified processes.

Solution Details
Avaya invited Consistacom to propose an agent management solution. Consistacom's flexible Policy driven Agent Management solution (PAM) was a perfect fit. Every night PAM examines each agent's configuration and performs all necessary add, change, and delete actions needed to achieve and maintain compliance with current policies. The policies are encoded in PAM's graphical user interface, allowing a single policy administrator to do the work formerly performed by a large team. A single instance of PAM can manage multiple ACDs, or even multiple networks of ACDs, each with their own policy set.

With PAM in place, the service provider starts each day knowing the entire population of agents is properly configured to maximize overall call center productivity. Call center supervisors retain the ability to make tactical changes based on changing conditions, confident the agents will start the next day once again in compliance with policies.

PAM has also made it possible to rapidly implement new incoming call types through overnight policy changes. What used to take days and many hours of administrative labor, and was difficult to coordinate across multiple Avaya systems, is now done regularly with 95% less labor and 100% accuracy.

This customer's PAM investment paid for itself in less than 2 months, which is typical for large-scale call centers. Small centers of a few hundred agents recoup their investment in under a year. Call centers of all sizes benefit from less waste from misdirected calls, which yields higher customer satisfaction.

About Consistacom
Consistacom's mission is providing scientific, enterprise-level management tools for voice communication systems. Working on Avaya platforms since 1995, Consistacom has built a reputation of customer service, providing innovative technical solutions to improve Contact Center and administrative office operations. Consistacom provides standard, highly configurable products that enhance the productivity of the Avaya platform by automating repetetive, error-prone tasks. Consistacom's solutions automatically implement and enforce flexibly defined business rules to achieve benefits in cost and revenue enhancement for the business, while providing complete transparency through audit trails and reporting.

Challenge
Reengineer Avaya call center management processes to handle the largest VOIP call center in the world. Daily agent optimization and automatic enforcement of Business Continuity policies are required features.

Solution
Use Consistacom's PAM to integrate the existing workforce management system with evolving operational policies, automatically updating Avaya Communication Manager Automatic Call Distributors (ACDs) daily.

Results

• 100% compliance with business continuity policies
• 95% reduction in labor to implement a new call type
  
• 85% reduction in elapsed time to introduce a new incoming call type
  
• 50% reduction in staff assigned to ACD agent management
  
• 2% overall savings in agent workforce costs by reducing wasted time
  
• Complete transparency of the management process, with a full audit trail
  

Background
A large United States national service provider flattened a distributed call center switching network, consolidating eleven Aspect ACDs into four centralized Avaya Communication Manager ACDs. Avaya was chosen to replace the incumbent vendor based on the power of Avaya's Expert Agent Selection and Business Advocate call routing applications, and the capability to eventually manage them through Avaya's open interfaces. The result was the largest VOIP call center on Earth.

As the consolidation project progressed, it became clear that handling 12,000+ call center agents with the available Avaya tools was not a workable solution. It was taking too long to implement new types of calls and call handling changes, affecting competitiveness. Business Continuity policies were not being observed and the company's Disaster Recovery plan was in jeopardy. The expectations of increased agent efficiency were being exceeded, but it was clear that additional gains were possible with more responsive ACD management processes.

The weak link the in call center's processes were the human ACD administrators. The workforce management system (WFM) was accurately maintained, being critical for day- to-day agent scheduling and adherence. The policies for administering agents performing various functions were well-defined, as were the business continuity policies.