HotSchedules is a cloud-based scheduling, labor and communication management software solution serving the restaurant and hospitality industry. According to the vendor, key benefits include: Build & Communicate Schedules The scheduling and labor management software reduces the time it takes managers to create and communicate schedules. All scheduling and employee information is stored in one central location, so managers have access to time-off requests,…
$2
per month per employee
Verint Workforce Management
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Verint® Workforce Management™ (WFM) is a cloud application that uses automation to simplify forecasting and scheduling of employees and bots across the enterprise, including contact centers, back offices and branch/service locations. The solution scales to accommodate a varying number of employees, channels, locations, time zones, schedule types, and request automation to meet the needs of mid-sized to global enterprise organizations. Verint removes the…
N/A
Pricing
HotSchedules
Verint Workforce Management
Editions & Modules
Essentials
$2
per month per employee
Plus
$4
per month per employee
Quote-Based
Quote-based pricing
WFM Enterprise
-
per month per user
WFM Enterprise
-
per month Per volume
WFM Enterprise
-
per month per user
WFM Enterprise
-
per month Per volume
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HotSchedules
Verint Workforce Management
Free Trial
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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Verint offers a named user pricing model with SaaS and on-premise delivery methods.
For small to medium-sized companies HotSchedules works great when business is very static. If you are simply using HotSchedules for a schedule writing tool, it is phenomenal. However, it does miss the mark as a labor control software. Needs more controls to keep managers aware of spending versus historical sales data.
It is great for channels that you have directly integrated into the Verint platform. For example we love having our phone system directly integrated into it Verint. It is harder to forecast in schedule when you do not have a direct integration opportunity.
Communication is so simple on HotSchedules. Whether it is communicating a new schedule release, or a quick note about tonight's shift we as managers are able to easily communicate and know that it will reach our team through text notifications, or email notifications.
The Meal Break planning tool is very useful in being able to help our floor leaders clearly understand and plan for what breaks are needed throughout the shift. This allows them to come up with a strategic game plan quickly and spend more time with our guests.
Shift Swaps and Releases are so seamless. This is our favorite tool as it makes helping our team cover shifts extremely easy and painless. On the flip side it also makes staff who want more hours be able to find what is available in real time.
Clocking In and out can be a little slow. It takes longer to clock in then our previous method. Before we just had a card you swiped and it would clock you in. Took 2 seconds. Now with the Hotschdules method we use it take 30 seconds or so. Not a huge issue but it can add up if you have one computer and a line of employees waiting to clock in.
Time Cards. It does not allow you to view someones current time until the "punch" has ended. If the manager would like to check what time the employee clocked in/out from lunch they have to wait until the employee has clocked out for the day before the record is generated. As a shift lead you may send and employee to lunch but forget to note what time you sent them. Awhile passes and you feel like they should be back by now, so you want to go in and see what time they left for lunch but it does not show you that punch record because the employee is still "clocked in" they are just on their "Meal Break"
The ability to customize the restrictions for Clocking in and out. You can set it up so that employees can only clock in from a specific location, however if you have a manager who is allowed to work from home they would not be able to clock in without being at the same location as set in the software. It would be nice to see it able to be customized per user.
It is very technical. It is not something that you can just jump into. It took me a while to train my other contact center managers on how to use it and I just actually recently got an employee who was helping me manage the workforce management variance system and it just takes a lot of time and patience in order to learn the full gamut of how shifts go together. And this goes into this and you have to do one piece right or nothing else works in the end and the activities. It is just a lot when you come from not doing anything close to that.
Whilst Verint Workforce Management is doing much of the work we were hoping it would do, there are some limitations that cause hesitancy when deciding if it is the tool for the future. No further exploration has taken place to seek alternatives to date. It is good for the Contact element of our business but not for the rest of the business, meaning we have to use two planning tools currently.
6 Years of Experience provides me the insight on the upgrades and changes that HotSchedules has done to improve the experience of its users. There are so many features that we still have not started or used to the fullest, but we believe that we are currently getting a strong value out of the money that is paid for this product.
I have worked within the system for several years and have not found a separate WFM system that is comparable or has as many features as Verint. There are comparable systems for scheduling , forecasting and PTO allotment. however I have not been able to find one with all three
On rare occasions a phone call has been required to find the solution to a problem, the HotSchedules response staff have been helpful, courteous, and genuinely seem to care for their clients and take pride in what they do. The consistent development and fine tuning of the platform, interface, and mobile environment shows that this is not a program full of people who rest on their laurels.
The team always work diligently to provide answers to my questions and fixes to my issues. The support team has remained consistent and is familiar with our business needs and that is something that is very beneficial as we grow and change
Training was covered in full day sessions that went very fast with no way of recording the information for later review. This made it hard to capture & retain all the details of information.
Training is more broad on specific use cases. It would be good to have training based on our current situations as we deal with so many unique setups & client needs.
The team helping us did a great job training our WFM leaders on how to use the tool from forecasting, to schedule updates to maintenance. They allowed us to be involved in implementation but also did a lot of the initial heavy lifting allowing us to stay focussed on the tasks at hand. It was a great experience and one I would hope occurs again should we ever need to implement a new tool again.
I have not used any other Scheduling software for employees. As a campground manager in the summer season, we are using campground master for reservations. it is very similar in process to employee scheduling. the ability to the user of that program to set up their own parameters for time and reservations is something that would benefit the employee scheduling software.
Verint Workforce Management is superior in many ways to other programs, though there are aspects of the others that may be a bit better. Overall, Verint has more pros than cons when compared to other scheduling software, it is simply in need of improvement in some areas.
Saving time on scheduling means our managers can focus more on guest experience, managing the floor and other areas that contribute to the success of our business.
Staffing optimization - With the Verint tool, we have been able to optimize our workforce, reduce our staff and centralize our processes.
Employee Engagement - Our employees always know where their performance stands so they can take ownership in their performance.
We have implemented WFM in several areas of the company and have been able to improve those departments which have never had a tool to help in back office operations.
