NatWest’s Planning and Real-Time teams wanted to boost agent engagement while also automating low-value processes — such as shift changes and time-off requests — that were hindering productivity. Key objectives included:
- Empowering agents by giving them more autonomy over their own schedules – agents felt excluded from the planning process and had little control over their working day. The ‘them and us’ mentality needed to change
- Using idle time more productively, on activities such as coaching and training
- Improving visibility over and approval of agents’ requests and KPIs
In addition, a constant need for manual data input was also making it challenging to approve requests quickly.
Phil Baker, Customer Experience Lead at NatWest, acknowledges: “We recognised that we needed to change the relationship between our agents and the business.
Previously, everything was very one directional – which led to disengagement. And, when it came to last minute requests, around overtime or shift changes, we were too rigid in our approach.”