Cruise line gets ship-shape with workforce management tool

Tour operator Royal Caribbean Cruise Line has invested in a workforce optimisation solution to cope with the rapid expansion of its contact centre.

The system forecasts call volumes so that managers can accurately predict their workforce requirement. It also integrates with the company's Witness system, which records calls, to tailor training to the individual agent. Agents themselves have access to reports from the system, so that they can book their time off, cutting down the admin task of booking holidays.

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Up to now, the company got by with an Excel spreadsheet but according to Royal Caribbean UK and Eire business manager, Marcus Lyall, the 50-seat contact centre has grown to the point where it could no longer be controlled effectively using that method.

He said: "It got to the point where it was difficult to predict and control the volume of calls we were getting, which could potentially impact the business on missed calls. We have a service level of 80 per cent of calls within 40 seconds and we needed a solution that would help us continue to meet that target."

The Sabio Impact 360 system being used by Royal Caribbean is expected to improve the quality of service provided by agents who take calls from travel agents for the operator's 30 ships.

Lyall said: "Staff retention is always an issue with any contact centre. This solution helps to engage and involve agents by giving them a better understanding of what they are doing and why. This in turn helps us retain the staff we've trained."

The company intends to roll out the solution to a number of specialist teams that deal mainly with pre- and after cruise customer care and will bring the number of seats supported up to 100.