Can a workforce management product increase productivity and automation … eliminate virtually all manual work … dramatically improve efficiency … and lead to an annual cost savings of almost $1 million?

According to AT&T - the world's premier voice, video and data communications company and user of TotalView® Workforce Management - the answer is assuredly yes!

With more than 6300 agents fielding over 63 million calls per year, a reliable workforce management system is a necessity. The in-house scheduling and adherence systems AT&T had developed to handle these tasks were quickly becoming obsolete; they were unable to interface with other systems and were not designed to generate much-needed reports.

IEX stepped in to fill the gap, helping AT&T transition to its TotalView software in less than a month's time.

"Once we had TotalView up and running, we were able to respond quickly to changing conditions," said Jeff Butler, operations manager-applications support. "We could manage the call volume and human resources in all 11 of our centers as efficiently as if we operated under one roof."

Retiring the existing scheduling and adherence systems delivered immediate cost savings and led to a headcount reduction in the operations group of almost 20 percent. In addition, the TotalView system could interface directly with AT&T's existing payroll system, which eliminated the errors resulting from manual data entry and decreased the number of incorrect paychecks issued.

AT&T enjoyed even greater cost savings through its smart utilization of the TotalView Real-Time Adherence feature. In just three quarters, the company credits real-time adherence with saving $700,000 by allowing management to ensure that agents' actual activity stays in sync with their scheduled activity.

"Using real-time adherence to identify and correct problems as they occur," continued Butler, "positions our team to better assist agents to perform at their full potential."

Still other features have simplified processes and made the work environment more productive. Vacation and Holiday Planner has saved the company hundreds of hours in data input and cost tracking. Agent WebStation - with its ability to deliver schedules and schedule changes straight to each agent's desktop computer - has replaced paper-based schedule distribution entirely.