Ameritas Life Insurance Sets Higher Customer Service Standard With Calabrio

    MONTREAL, Jan. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Calabrio, Inc., a leading provider of
 contact center workforce management (WFM) solutions, today announced immediate
 results from its second deployment with Ameritas Life Insurance Corp., a UNIFI
 company.  With Calabrio, the leading financial services organization is now
 able to deliver more consistent and higher levels of customer service through
 a more flexible, efficient and strategic use of its call center agents.
     Already using Calabrio to great success at its Group Dental division with
 more than 100 agents, Ameritas implemented the WFM technology at its
 Individual Life & Annuity division, a much more complex environment.  Its
 multi-skilled agents needed to be knowledgeable about a greater number of
 products and were highly educated, having passed the Series 6 and other
 financial exams.  As a result, they represented a higher labor cost than the
 average agent, making any accidental overstaffing an expensive mistake.
     Debra Sterns, Ameritas' second vice president of the Individual Client
 Services Call Center, explained, "Microsoft Excel was difficult to use for
 forecasting and scheduling, making it a challenge to keep our customer
 satisfaction scores at the desired levels.  With Calabrio, our service levels
 are much more steady and our workday predictable.  This creates a more orderly
 environment where we can focus on providing the highest level of customer
 care.  With our recent merger and combined customer base, Calabrio will be
 critical in accurately manage a fast-growing call volume between our two
 locations."
     With greater visibility into its operations, Ameritas is now able to more
 intelligently mobilize its people.  For instance, Ameritas found it could
 start agent shifts at 7:45 a.m. instead of 7:00 a.m. to save a significant
 amount of money without lowering service levels, and it could move around
 existing agents to cover a 10% expected increase in call volume, instead of
 hiring more agents.  Calabrio also enabled the company to schedule off-phone
 activities -- such as training, meetings and projects -- at the least
 disruptive times as well as to extend its hours of operation without again
 simply throwing agents, and therefore money, at the challenge.
     Greater flexibility and accounting for agent preferences in work schedules
 translated into a more employee-friendly environment.  Ameritas could now
 offer a flexible, shorter work-week as well as lunches and breaks scheduled at
 optimal, more convenient times, rather than at rigidly-fixed times.  With
 wrap-up or off-phone time built into their schedules, agents can more easily
 tie up any loose ends during the day -- and a less stressed and more happy
 agent is likely to provide better customer care.
     "We are tremendously pleased with Calabrio," continued Sterns.  "Our
 experience and results justify our decision to choose Calabrio as our WFM
 partner, instead of larger vendors whose solutions didn't seem to fit small-
 to medium-sized contact centers such as ours.  Further, Calabrio has given us
 the most responsive service and attentive training we've ever had."
     "Financial services organizations such as Ameritas are under intense
 pressure to provide the best customer service, so they understand how
 important an effective workforce management system is to their operations,"
 said Rene LeBel, chief executive officer and founder of Calabrio.  "The secret
 to Calabrio's success is our unmatched accuracy rates of up to 99.5%.  Having
 a precise forecasting and scheduling engine is what our customers are telling
 us matter the most to them.  Only then can you fully and strategically
 leverage your most important and most expensive asset -- your people."
 
     About Calabrio, Inc.
     Calabrio's workforce management solutions are used by companies worldwide,
 such as Blue Cross, Direct TV, MasterCard, MBNA, Sears and hundreds more.
 From our start in 1995 -- and now with offices in Canada, United States and
 Europe -- Calabrio is one of the very first to give multi-site and multi-
 channel management capabilities to today's evolving contact centers.  Unlike
 competitors, Calabrio offers an unmatched forecasting and scheduling accuracy
 of up to 99.5% as well as a full range of additional capabilities at no extra
 charge, such as skills- and performance-based scheduling, KPIs, payroll
 integration, and much more.  As a result, our customers can dramatically
 improve productivity, employee satisfaction and efficiency, which in turn
 drive customer service and profitability.  For more information, please visit
 http://www.calabrio.com.
 
     Media Contact:
     Renee Maler
     Public Relations
     renee@philosophyPR.com
     +1.925.968.9495
 
 

SOURCE  Calabrio, Inc.