Country Home Products Drives Customer Service and Efficiency with GMT Planet
Outdoor power equipment supplier streamlines call center scheduling and reduces costs
Norcross, Ga. – December 4, 2006 – GMT Corp., an industry leader in enterprise workforce and cash optimization solutions, today announced that Country Home Products, home of DR Power, has deployed the GMT Planet suite to manage its customer care center. The outdoor power equipment supplier’s implementation replaces a Blue Pumpkin system and provides numerous benefits, such as improved call center agent scheduling, greater adherence to schedules, and empowered agent interactions.
Country Home Products’ call center, which represents about 25% of its total labor costs, has fluctuating personnel requirements, ranging from 40 employees in the slow season to 125 agents during the summer. Agent training is especially important, since its sales and tech support agents must be highly knowledgeable about all its products, including legacy or discontinued products that are nonetheless still supported. So better managing its workforce would be the key to unlocking significant cost-savings as well as productivity and efficiency gains.
“It was an easy decision to select GMT over the other top vendors we evaluated,” said Peter Pembroke, assistant manager of customer service at Country Home Products. “GMT offers the most intuitive, user-friendly interface, and it had the most robust set of functionality. The results speak for themselves: with GMT Planet, we can be sure that our call center staffing matches our customer service requirements – maximizing our revenue while controlling costs.”
The company’s previous workforce management system did not track staffing requirements in real- or near-time. Consequently, Country Home Products often had instances when more agents were scheduled than needed. GMT Planet provides up-to-date staffing data, so managers can immediately change staffing levels as needed. The workforce management solution also enables Country Home Products to manage its training programs more closely – enabling the company to precisely track and control those expenses as well as ensure its agents are sufficiently trained and at times that would not impact customer service levels.
“We’re pleased that Country Home Products turned to GMT to enhance its customer service operations,” said Simon Angove, chief executive officer of GMT. “By focusing on core principles – such as simplicity, accuracy, and enterprise-wide performance – GMT is fast becoming the workforce optimization solutions provider of choice for leading companies worldwide.”
About GMT Corporation
GMT’s workforce and cash optimizations solutions create competitive advantage by enabling companies to improve customer service and sales, while decreasing their variable expenses. The company’s product line combines precision forecasting and intelligent scheduling with powerful analytics and performance management tools – together delivering a complete solution that is priced to deliver quick return on investment. GMT serves financial services and contact center customers worldwide, including ABN AMRO, Citibank, Nielsen Media, Pizza Hut, SunTrust, UPS, Washington Mutual and Wells Fargo. The company is privately held with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, and offices in the U.K., Australia, and India. For more information, visit www.gmt.com
