MBS Books Has Reduced Labor Costs and Increased Agent Productivity by Adopting Pipkins' Vantage Point for Call Center Scheduling

MBS Textbook Exchange, Inc. and MBS Direct, LLC ("MBS Books"), a wholesale and retail provider of educational materials and the largest textbook reseller in the U.S., has increased scheduling accuracy and reduced labor costs in its 150-seat call center by automating the agent scheduling process with Pipkins' Vantage Point software.

In one month alone, the company saved $50,000 by eliminating the need to hire workers through temporary employment agencies to fill seats during the busy season. VantagePoint's flexible skill-based scheduling capabilities have produced more cost-effective staffing by enabling MBS Books to incorporate part-time employees into the mix for the first time. The software has also increased agent productivity by more accurately matching staffing to call volume, and reduced administrative overhead through an optional module that allows agents to access their schedules and request exceptions online without supervisor intervention.

Joan Dutill, Director of Customer Services for MBS Direct, a division that sells textbooks directly to students, stated that before Pipkins' software was installed, they were using a manual ‘guess and check' system that left them overstaffed at certain times, understaffed at others, and unable to hire part-time employees because they had no good way to schedule part-time agents. Vantage Point enabled MBS Books to structure their staffing to precisely match the wide variations that occur in their workflow by time, day and season.

MBS's call center, located near company headquarters in Columbia, Missouri, operates two shifts. The staff includes order processors and customer service representatives for orders received by phone, plus a dedicated team that handles mail, email and voucher sales. Roughly half of the agents are part-time employees who are hired during the peak fall and winter seasons and are available on an irregular schedule. Business volume is growing at roughly 35% per year, further complicating the scheduling process.

The company began using VantagePoint in July 2002 after an evaluation of workforce management solutions from 10 different vendors. In addition to ease of use and sophisticated scheduling functionality, key factors in the decision were Vantage Point's support for MBS's existing hardware and the ability to import historical data from MBS's ACD to aid in forecasting call volumes.

MBS Books is a striking example of a growing call center that needed to automate the scheduling process to run efficiently. From savings in labor costs to new hiring flexibility made possible by the ability to deploy part-time personnel on any schedule that meets their needs, MBS has achieved significant advantages that would not be possible without a system like Vantage Point bringing order to an extremely complex staffing environment.