Pipkins Software

Pipkins Features

Advanced Forecasting with Pipkins exclusive Merlang® algorithms
Scheduling in Skill-Based environments using SkillSense™ technology
Easy to use point-and-click graphical Schedule Management tools
ACD Integration for Data Collection across multiple sites and time zones
Workload distribution/automation with Multiple Application Server
Agent access with Web Agent Viewing and Empowerment (WAVE™)
Comprehensive Reporting capability – email, export, or schedule reports
Complete Centralized Multi-site Management
Attendance Preferences
Support for Multi-media environments
Open Architecture / ODBC access
Vacation Planning module
Agent Productivity Reporting
Real-Time Adherence monitoring
Back Office Management
Performance Management
Agent Notification
and much more…

Call center managers at more than 500 sites around the world managing more than 700,000 agents depend on Pipkins products for their workforce scheduling and forecasting needs. Whether you have 30,000 agents or just 30, Pipkins Vantage Point provides the flexibility and advanced technology you need to efficiently manage your contact center.

ABOUT VANTAGE POINT

Your scheduling, forecasting, adherence, planning, and reporting needs can all be met with our easy to use and flexible workforce management software solution. Do you have a multi-site, multi-media, skill-based, or other complex environment involving numerous ACDs from multiple vendors and located in different time zones? No problem! Maxima Advantage was designed from the beginning to handle all of these scenarios.

The latest generation of our award winning Workforce Management product, Vantage Point, “raises the bar” in workforce management products again by presenting the most easy to use, yet customizable, interface available on the market today. Repetitive tasks are eliminated as Vantage Point “remembers” who you are and what you do. Rather than you learning the software, with Vantage Point the software learns you! Now users can customize the interface and functionality to levels never seen before.

Maxima Advantage functionality is second to none in the workforce management industry. True client-server architecture, coupled with the power of an Oracle database and a Windows operating system ensure seamless integration into your corporate environment.

The decision in a workforce management product is a critical one. The product must be able to meet the needs of your call center today, and your growth tomorrow. Pipkins products have been designed with the flexibility and customization to handle your future growth. Vantage Point can scale from a single site with tens of agents to a multi-site environment with thousands of agents with a few simple configuration changes. Solutions for today — and years to come.

VANTAGE POINT

Vantage Point is our premier enterprise product featuring comprehensive scheduling, forecasting, and planning functionality for complete enterprise-wide, front office, back office, multi-site, call center workforce management and performance management.

Pipkins understands that details matter with every contact. Pipkins’ premier product, Vantage Point, uniquely handles every contact that comes into organizations, including calls, chat, e-mail, and back office work items. Pipkins utilizes its own state-of-the-art algorithms developed by founder, Dr. James Pipkins. Vantage Point is simply the most accurate forecasting product on the market, enabling companies to solve complex operational issues in today’s multi-faceted enterprise workforce management environments. Featuring comprehensive forecasting, scheduling, and planning functionality for complete enterprise-wide workforce management, Pipkins gives organizations the ability to automate processes and reduce costs.

Regression analysis enables Pipkins’ forecasting algorithms to uniquely look at every contact channel. The old Erlang models are no longer applicable in today’s environment. Realizing modifications were needed, Dr. Pipkins developed “Merlang”, an improved modification of Erlang. As rapidly changing contact channels evolve, Pipkins’ Merlang model can easily adapt to:

INBOUND

Vantage Point handles standard parameters such as Service Objectives, Average Speed of Answer, and AHT by applying additional variables around busies and Mean Time to Abandoned. This is performed at the at the time step level all the way to 5 minutes, if needed, providing a more accurate staffing requirement.

OUTBOUND

In addition to standard call and handling time, Vantage Point is able to pull in campaigns and apply variables such as the minimum percentage of connected calls to be handled and percentage of attempted of calls that connect.

CHAT

Vantage Point uniquely manages chat by taking into account that multiple sessions can occur at any given time, and inbound and outbound capabilities need to be applied according to how organizations manage their strategy. Additionally, all other Merlang parameters can be applied to ensure optimal chat staffing requirements. In a dynamic chat model, Vantage Point maximizes off-line time for agents to pick up chat during down times.

BACK OFFICE AND EMAIL

E-mails, which do not typically abandon, need to be considered in staffing parameters. Minimum percentage of requests processed, Average Handling Time, as well as extended Service Objectives (days, hours, minutes) ensure staffing requirements for e-mail work items.

Once Merlang parameters have been applied, Vantage Point will apply its unique Sum of Squares algorithms to look at every interval of requirements. Unlike other workforce management systems that utilize a “net to zero” model, which looks at an end of day net to zero staffing line, the more accurate Sum of Squares model looks at every interval of staffing requirements. The system then runs continuous schedule scenarios, adjusting for start/stop times, breaks, lunches, etc., until the most optimal schedule for every interval throughout the day is produced.

Day-to-day management of organizational activities is critical as unexpected spikes in workloads occur, while staffing changes simultaneously arise. As agents call in sick and meetings occur, organizations are affected, and real time tools are critical to evaluate how daily workforce management goals are being affected. Utilization of Pipkins’ tools, such as the over 100 comparison statistics in reporting, numerous change management tools, and real time views into agent metrics, can ensure that organizations meet their operational goals.

WEBACCESS

Streamlined communications and process automation is critical for organizations to enhance employee morale by providing necessary tools to perform day-to-day tasks. Failure to provide these tools lowers productivity, increases turnover, and churns supervisor time responding to manual requests on a daily basis. The cost is extensive, adding to higher staffing, on-boarding, and administrative costs. Pipkins WebAccess functionality provides productivity tools to agents and supervisors to make their workday easier.

Pipkins’ WebAccess empowers agents to manage day-to-day activities, as well as personal performance, through online productivity tools. This functionality enables agents in the front and back office the capability to:

View schedules, as well as changes made on a real time basis
Submit change requests and trade shifts with other agents based on business rules
View KPI's delivered real time through the notification system, allowing agents to quickly change behavior to meet goals
Manage vacation time through automated requests according to business rules defined by the HR system
Communicate with other agents via a bulletin board system

Tools are now available for managers to remotely monitor agent activities. Supervisors are no longer tethered to desktop clients and VPN networks that limit when critical information is accessible. By using a web browser or smart phone, supervisors have the ability to:

Manage agent schedule changes and requests
Manage and process vacation request information
View Real Time Adherence information with one click schedule edits, or send messages directly to agents
Send custom notification messages to individuals or groups of agents through a real time system
Run contact center and back office reporting metrics such as agent statistics, adherence and organizational statistics

By utilizing Pipkins' WebAccess functionality, organizations will ensure personnel have the tools necessary to increase productivity and automate processes, while reducing staffing costs and improving their bottom line. WebAccess offers the same comprehensive functionality as our premier product, Vantage Point, but with the added benefits of a low cost, subscription-based, hosted solution. This product was designed to meet the specific needs of the small, mobile, or seasonal call center. Read More

DASHBOARD

The customer journey is one of the most critical things on any executive’s mind today. Providing an exceptional customer experience depends on so many factors – one of the most important being empowering your front line representatives with tools and information to do the best job possible.

The Pipkins Dashboard offers valuable ticker-style data in a compact format that arms agents and supervisors with real-time knowledge about individual and contact center performance. With the Pipkins Dashboard, you can:

Leverage five standard data views and customize them to suit your operational needs
Add and create new views simply and easily utilizing our flexible web interface
Connect with external systems, like Quality Assurance solutions, to integrate other relevant data into the views
Drill down into any data set with a single click
Export to various formats and print drill-down reports directly from the dashboard

Dashboard

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Utilizing the Spreadsheet Performance Management tool enables users to customize data for their business needs through intuitive menu-driven drop down selections. By taking advantage of all of the Pipkins Vantage Point stored information, dashboards and reports can be easily created and delivered displaying call center and back office information for real time views into organizational KPI’s. Informed decisions can then be made to proactively coach and develop under-performing agents in areas of need. Pipkins’ Spreadsheet Performance Management makes it possible to:

Create custom dashboards and reports from Supervisor to Executive levels
Deliver real time KPI’s to agents throughout the day through a ticker display
Automate previously manually generated reporting processes
Aggregate workforce management and other KPI information into one source

Real time KPI’s are critical to ensure accurate and up-to-date information. Once KPI’s are received, agents can quickly change measured behavior. Real time KPI’s ensure no delay in communication of information. This is not true in a manual environment where agents often do not receive their KPI’s for weeks or even months later.

Pipkins’ Spreadsheet Performance Management streamlines the manual reporting processes, saving hours of time and labor to effectively deliver multiple dashboards and reports needed by management. By communicating real time KPI’s to agent desktops, productivity is instantly improved, hitting typical targets of AHT, Adherence, Contacts, and many others goals by which they are measured.

MOBILE ACCESS

Mobile device support is now offered exclusively for Pipkins Vantage Point WebAccess module. This enhancement enables users equipped with smart phones or tablets to check agent status at a glance, modify schedules with a click while in meetings or off-site, send messages and notifications and view reports from hundreds of miles away.

Supervisors can log changes such as sick days or early releases, view agent schedules, and send popup and email messages with a click from the same grid without navigating to different screens. Reports such as staffing effect summaries, adherence summaries for individual agents or the entire staff, and scheduled and actual activity summary graphs are available from the same control screen.

FEATURES

Leverages Smart phone's display and touch controls to deliver remote browser-based access to the full functionality of the WebAccess module, including both the graphic interface and one-click update capabilities.
Displays graphical layout in the proper horizontal orientation as well as color-coding for identifying out-of-compliance agents.
Drills down to the fine details in highly readable text, and allow supervisors to access information or make schedule changes simply by touching a finger to the screen.
One-click report access enabling supervisors to retrieve staffing effect summaries, adherence summaries for individual agents or the entire staff, scheduled and actual activity summary graphs, and other reports from the adherence screen. Reports can be configured to dock or pop up.
Dynamic color changes for the entire square or agent icon, showing whether the agent is in adherence, not in adherence, not in adherence but within tolerance, schedule to arrive within two hours, arriving or leaving within 30 minutes, or off. The size of the squares and icons makes the colors easy to see, even at a distance.
One-click schedule updates from the adherence control panel, eliminating the need to navigate to separate screens to log schedule changes such as late arrivals, sick days or early releases. Users simply click “Schedule” in the non-adhering agent’s square to access a menu of update options. Users can also view agent schedules and send popup and email messages with a click from the same menu.

REAL TIME ADHERENCE

Managing agents throughout the day is a critical component of ensuring operational efficiency in your contact center. As you invest human resources as well as monetary expenses in technology, it’s important that you are getting the most out of these investments. If your agents are not adhering to the optimal schedules delivered by the workforce management system, this will add to losing time and money, taking away from your bottom line. Real Time Adherence is a key ingredient in managing your workforce and delivering industry standard KPI’s, while improving your overall productivity.

Real-Time Adherence

With Pipkins Real Time Adherence, contact center and back office management have the ability to effectively manage the agents by:

Proactively monitor agents adherence on a real time basis by comparing the scheduled activity to their actual state information
Eliminate the need to “baby sit” a real time adherence screen by automating alerts to agents and supervisors when adherence thresholds are broken
Distributing industry standard adherence KPI’s real time to agents as well as management dashboards
Providing mobile adherence views as managers are on the move, they have the ability to view reporting and real time adherence through web and smart phone access

Organizations today have an increasing need to scale their operational visibility. As the business needs shift, the technology will have to be able to accommodate very flexible environments such as:

FRONT OFFICE

Contact center management can measure and monitor agents real time by comparing their scheduled information to the actual phone states. Effectively doing so will ensure service objectives are met and organizational KPI measurements are delivered for actionable results by the agent and supervisors.

BACK OFFICE

Desktop agent adherence has become a critical need in managing your back office personnel. Management now has the ability to look at agents active windows compared their scheduled work in a real time adherence view. Additional reporting can be viewed to display how much time an agent spent in a particular screen (i.e. Facebook, Amazon, work items) to give visibility where the agent is spending their time.

GLOBAL

In the multi-site world, management needs to be able to quickly drill down to any center at a given time. Through Pipkins RTA Global functionality, views can be configured any way needed by looking at a roll up of adherence metrics. Drill down capabilities can then be set up by individual site in order to find the root cause of adherence issues. Notifications and alerts are set up to quickly communicate this out, thus providing quick and actionable adherence changes to meet organizational objectives that have been set.

VIRTUAL

As the phenomenon of home shoring continues to grow, Pipkins @HomeVantage provides the capability to monitor real time adherence through its’ Global Supervisor views. Supervisors have a unique challenge in the at home world as they are typically at a higher agent to supervisor ratio. Real Time Adherence provides the ability to quickly see agents that are not adhering to their schedule. Since the agents are virtual, Desktop Adherence becomes increasingly important as this provides another way for the supervisor to “see” what the agent is doing real time.

Pipkins Real Time Adherence capabilities are unique in the industry in delivering operational visibility to organizations. The ability to be flexible to every environment is a critical need to meet workforce management objectives, delivering KPI’s and productivity which ultimately reduces your top line staffing costs.

@HomeVantage

Pipkins’ @HomeVantage gives organizations the ability to effectively manage their agents as the “Home Shoring” phenomenon continues to rapidly grow. Companies want to offer highly skilled employees a flexible work environment, making at-home scheduling even more important. At-home scheduling has been shown to reduce internal infrastructure costs and improve employee morale. Pipkins’ @HomeVantage can be used with Vantage Point, or integrated into another workforce management system to leverage existing technology.

Many organizations prefer a “Hub and Spoke” model in which agents begin working in the call center, then after a period of time move to an at-home position within a certain mile radius of the center. This provides flexibility for the agent to come into the center during emergencies, company meetings, or for other activities. Pipkins’ @HomeVantage is easily adaptable to the Hub and Spoke model. Vantage Point schedules both call center and at-home agents. Agents can be part of the “hub” schedule generation process, or build their own schedules by requirements generated by the workforce team. This ensures optimal scheduling to allow at-home agents flexibility to fill staffing gaps.

As contact centers become truly virtual with at-home agent models, it is desirable to fully utilize the benefits of the scheduling tool. Pipkins’ @HomeVantage allows virtual agents to pick and choose blocks of time in which they can build their own shifts according to established company rules and staffing requirements. The Virtual Model provides optimal utilization of remote agents to fill staffing requirements based on business needs while improving agent morale and autonomy through use of self service tools.

Pipkins’ @HomeVantage provides an easy agent self-service scheduling tool. The agent uses a checkout method for self-scheduling to accommodate staffing requirements based on business needs. The scheduling process ensures rules specific to organizational needs are met, including break and lunch times, hours worked, and any other specific organizational needs.

HOSTED

Pipkins’ hosted workforce management utilizes workforce and performance management as well as back office on a single server, architecture, and platform with access anywhere, anytime. Organizations benefit from our enterprise software without high up-front licensing costs, IT expenditures, and being locked into long-term contracts. Our hosted solution offers a quick return on investment as well as the benefits of Pipkins’ proven technology.

WebAccess is a flexible subscription based solution provided through a secure SOC2 Type II data center. Security is ensured through web based or mobile login access. WebAccess offers the following benefits:

No hardware or software to install
Flexible month-to-month subscription costs
Operating expense as opposed to large capital expenditure
Access anytime, anywhere with no “VPN” requirement
Peace of mind, we manage it for you
Enterprise software capabilities at a much lower cost
Fast implementation process

Pipkins is the only hosted offering for workforce and performance management, as well as back office capabilities, on a single database. Our hosted solution gives companies real-time visibility and process automation without the high capital expenditures and IT costs required by many other workforce management vendors.