Monitronics deploys Verint management software

DALLAS--Monitronics, a large provider of residential alarm monitoring, on May 23 announced the deployment of Verint Systems’ Impact 360 Workforce Management solution software to measure, monitor and manage the performance of its central station. “The software allows us to look at the flow in the call center and schedule agents based on real-time data,” said John Mejia, vice president of customer care for Monitronics. “It allows me to sit down with managers and properly manage phones by looking at what happened last year at this same time period as well as evaluate what’s going on today.” Currently, the company has integrated 450 of its call center staff into the system and is considering adding other departments to the system in the future. Prior to deploying Verint’s software, Monitronics did most of its scheduling manually, using spreadsheet-based tools, said Rajeev Venkat, solutions marketing director for Verint Witness Actionable Solutions. “Our software allows Monitronics to consistently meet service levels and to do that efficiently,” Venkat said. “Our software can look at historical call volumes and current business trends and what the company expects to happen in coming weeks, and come up with an accurate forecast down to the 15-minute level.” Once the software determines an accurate forecast it then evaluates agent availability and produces an optimal schedule for the call center, said Venkat. In addition to scheduling, Verint’s software can provide supervisors and managers Web-based tools to monitor and evaluate individual agent performance and team performance on a real-time basis. “A supervisor can set up alerts so if something isn’t going to plan, say an agent is late coming back from lunch or call volume spikes up, they can set up thresholds that will send an email so they can immediately take the appropriate actions,” said Venkat. Because the software evaluates individual operator performance, Monitronics can use a weighted system that combines operator performance with seniority to award time-off requests. Operators can also monitor their own performance rating as well as submit time-off requests and swap shifts with other operators via a Web browser. In addition to managing scheduling and other workforce tools, Mejia said, Monitronics is also considering using the Verint system for payroll. Monitronics installed the Verint software in January of this year and it is currently about 60 percent deployed, said Mejia. Monitronics expects to fully deploy Verint’s solution by the end of the calendar year.