We saw Assembled as a trustworthy system, not just a set of spreadsheets, that was going to help us staff for today and forecast for tomorrow. It also helped that the Assembled team really knew how CX worked because they had been in our shoes.
Henry Dunn
Director of CX
The challenge: Spreadsheets are error-prone and not designed for scale
Thanks to Care/of, wellness has a new and (very) personalized look.
In contrast to an overwhelming status quo - endless shelves of indistinguishable vitamins - and outdated models of care, the Care/of promise is a simple yet welcome one: to be a trusted partner in your journey to a more healthy life. Exceptional customer support is central to this idea, naturally. “It’s about adding a more human component to an offering that’s both personalized and convenient at its core,” says Henry Dunn, Care/of’s Director of Customer Experience. Henry and his CX team aren’t exactly your average support organization. Part customer service, part user researchers, and part retention experts, this team of 12 agents does whatever it takes to ensure customers are getting exactly what they need, as quickly as possible.
This context-switching, multi-hat-wearing team relied on a workflow based in Google Sheets to ensure agents knew where they needed to be at any given time across email and chat. And yet, the team had to move in between spreadsheets, Zendesk and Slack just to find an answer to a question, or to get the most updated information on scheduling changes. “Reporting was a hodgepodge,” says Henry, “and it would usually require our BI tool for certain things, and the spreadsheet for others.”
For team lead and scheduler-extraordinaire Hannah Santisi, this was far from ideal. Not only would building schedules take up to 10 hours a week, but it would “feel like we were starting from scratch every day.” Each tab in their Google Sheets represented a different day’s schedule, which inevitably led to mix-ups (“I read the wrong tab to find my schedule”), mistakes (“I accidentally deleted a schedule”), or unreadable cells (“The formula broke!”).
Even though Google Sheets seems easy, it’s still really painful. For me, it was incredibly manual and time-consuming. And for agents, it felt like a one-way dialogue, where we were just telling them where they needed to be, without context on why we made those decisions.
Hannah Santisi
CX Team Lead
For a small team, these errors would inevitably lead to downstream pain. Agents might feel guilty or self-conscious for making a mistake, and customers might experience longer wait times while a scheduling mix-up was resolved. To address these pains head-on, the Care/of team tried — and quickly abandoned —Tymeshift.
Even though Tymeshift integrated with Zendesk, it was buggy. Worst of all, our agents felt like they were being watched because of how adherence worked. Tymeshift created a really weird dynamic on our team, where agents felt managed by the tool.
Hannah Santisi
CX Team Lead
Creating a cleaner system of record with Assembled
“Not having to check 12 different agents’ calendars to schedule has been great, since the Google Calendar sync does it for me. And Assembled's templates make it easy to copy, paste, and edit schedules in bulk.”
Hannah Santisi
CX Team Lead
For Hannah, whose top priority was making sure agents were happy, engaged, and performing well, it was time to think beyond basic scheduling and time-tracking tools. This was equally critical for Henry, whose focus was on finding new and better ways to retain customers. After an “easy onboarding experience”, the Care/of team was off to the races. Almost immediately, they felt the benefits of an easier-to-create, easier-to-view schedule. Agents were able to see their up-to-date schedule in Google Calendar, which meant they spent less time tool-switching, and more time focused on customer-facing work. Schedule creation even went from 10 hours a week down to just 2.
Spreadsheets told agents where to be, but that’s it. Assembled gives them the critical information they need to start their day without confusion or resentment. They can also go in and easily request time off or changes to their schedule in Assembled.
Hannah Santisi
CX Team Lead
Thanks to the staffing timeline, agents were able to see schedules more holistically and in the context of forecasted demand, which gave them important context into how and why the scheduling decisions were made. For Hannah and Henry, the Realtime Dashboard allows them to see exactly where everyone is, what they’re doing, and is able to double-click into any out-of-adherence instances. This way, managers can hold agents accountable without making them feel like they’re under constant watch or being micro-managed.
As for what’s next for this multi-talented team? The sky’s the limit, especially as they arefreed up to proactively find ways to improve and enhance the Care/of experience. “Happier agents mean happier customers. Assembled is helping us fuel this cycle.”
