ICE contact center staff had been using Excel spreadsheets to schedule agents, which was an inefficient and difficult practice, Since the agents are the primary drivers of the company's sales ICE recognized that a robust workforce management tool, as well as a solid performance optimization strategy, was necessary to achieve higher closing percentages and average sales margins.

Aspect® eWorkforce Management™ helps ICE forecast the level of resources that will be required in the contact center on an intra-day basis. This means ICE can predict, with a much greater degree of accuracy, the staff required to manage both incoming and outgoing calls throughout the day. The system is also used to test various "what-if" schedule and staffing scenarios and then execute schedules to the forecast. The result has been reductions in under and over-staffing, as well as the elimination of overtime costs.

By leveraging the product's Real-Time Adherence module, ICE has been able to first measure adherence and then track it on a real-time basis. This insight gives both contact center supervisors and agents near instant feedback on how they are performing against targets. Armed with this information, ICE has overhauled the company's bonus and incentive programs to revolve around adherence improvements. Supervisor bonuses are tied to the schedule compliance average achieved by their team and agents are rewarded with specific incentives for reaching their targets.