Alvaria Workforce (formerly Aspect Workforce Management), is a suite of software which combines call center workforce management with advanced analytics features like call recording, speech analytics, eLearning for training, data sharing for schedule optimization across call center or branch locations, and desktop analytics for monitoring and analyzing discrete actions like employee keystrokes and application usage. The Basic, Advanced, and Enterprise tiers include…
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Homebase
Score 7.1 out of 10
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Homebase in San Francisco offers restaurants, hotels, hospitals, and retailers their employee scheduling and time tracking tools with scheduling optimization and team messaging for coordinating shifts; service includes a free time tracking app.
$14
per month
Sling
Score 9.2 out of 10
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Sling, from the company of the same name in Brooklyn, is presented by the vendor as an easy way to schedule and communicate with non-desk employees. It allows users to organize, communicate, and administer all aspects of a business, to stay on top of things and keep everything in one place without juggling multiple platforms.
Easy workforce management tool and the dashboard is well designed with multiple accessible functionalities. This platform allows easy data collection across other project management systems and the analytics which the tool provides are excellent and very reliable project planning and easy scheduling with effective and excellent management functionalities and initial implementing is also an easy process.
Homebase is a very cost-effective program that does a good job tracking employee hours as well as what employees are working on. It is extremely easy to use and has a lot of self-service features, which give employees information at their fingertips. Homebase integrates well with our payroll provider.
Sling offers enough customization I can see it working in most any scheduling scenarios. The ability to build job types into each employee gives you the control to match employee skills with the need for any particular position. Time of day templates makes it easy to select various shift times.
The configuration of the system is quite complex and very difficult to administer.
Initial training on the product is simply focused on the product and it typically not done using a customers real data. Since many customers do not have a strong background in WFM to begin with, the training should focus more on the fundamental of WFM before it dives into how to use the tool. You have to learn more about how it is best to use the tool for real world environments and not just how to click here and go there.
RTA has not been updated in years. It does not offer real-time schedule adherence scores and the reporting is terrible. Reporting is specific to each workspace and you lose data each time you close a workspace.
The shrinkage calculator feature that was added a few years ago is a great feature but very difficult to reconcile. If you are not an extreme expert with the very confusing superstate philosophy in eWFM it can be disastrous.
The messaging features in Homebase are not consistent across the platform. In the app you can mass message everyone, however using the website you cannot, at least not at the price point that we are using.
The roles for employees and how to navigate them can be confusing especially when trying to schedule one employee in two different departments.
The separation of departments is a bit rigid and makes it difficult for universal employees to be scheduled easily.
While I support other customers who utilize the software, the response from our customers is over-whelmingly positive. Many customers who have not had any type of workforce management software in the past use spreadsheets to schedule and forecast agents. This can be extremely complicated and a nightmare to control. The time saved by having a product that can quickly complete these functions for you is worth the investment. Also, we have several customers who had no way to track what their agents are doing and have found many problems in their call-center with the software. After rolling out a program where their adherence was tracked and actually 'mattered', they were able to see increased efficency from their agents.
Once the initial set up of the software is complete and/or you are familiar with the software, it is easy to use and runs like a dream. However, if you are unfamiliar with the software or have used a competitor's product, some features can seem difficult to learn or get used to.
Homebase is very easy to use. Not a lot of training or direction is needed to get it going. Easy feature to track employee hours. Able to use centrally located tablets for employees to clock in and out. A very cost-effective system that also saves time when processing payroll. Employees love its features.
I was impressed with the support I received. There were never any long delays when I had issues and the representatives that I worked with were always patient and eager to fully understand not only my problem but our business processes surrounding the problem.
Implementation of the software was not difficult but it was tedious for us due to the fact that our processes had not kept up with the times and we had to make a large number of process changes along with setting up the software.
I have used NICE IEX Workforce Management in addition to Aspect Workforce Management, both tools are great at what they do. Aspect however builds its forecast model continuously, adding more information to the model everyday, where are with IEX, the model has to be built each and every time from used selections each week. IEX does not have a historical base model to reference, where Aspect does.
Homebase is simpler to use. Easier to navigate and is much cheaper than other alternatives! We had trouble when I worked as they were harder to reach our ROI. Deputy was too expensive and it was the reason we decided on Homebase! Employees also find it easy to use on their end!
The workforce management team was able to decrease the cycle time forecasting, staffing and scheduling staff; resulted in higher employee engagement
The scenario based planning enabled us to develop a more accurate call volume forecast thus staffing the contact centers appropriately; approximately $500k savings realized in labor expenses (reduced FTE headcount, while meeting the same level of service level measures)
Improved customer experience due to staffing the call center properly (answered 80 percent of our calls within 20 seconds)
Homebase has made the day to day management of employees easier, freeing up time for management to work on other things that help secure customer satisfaction.
It has also made payroll easier since it's implementation and allowed for fewer mistakes than the previous manual method, leading to less monetary mistakes and happier employees.
Homebase has made monitoring hours and overtime, as well as completion of internship and volunteer hours, much easier to monitor, leading to less confusion and more satisfied volunteers, interns, and payroll managers
