Automating schedule management
Overview
Stone's 800-person customer service team faced challenges with schedule management. The process was fragmented, depending on the use of spreadsheets, custom CRMs, and other market tools.
The core problem was inefficiency. The lack of a unified tool caused rework for the planning team, poor real-time operational visibility, and difficulties in scaling the team. Furthermore, maintenance costs for third-party tools were high, amounting to R$2.5 million per year.
Strategy & Approach
The project aimed to build a CRM-agnostic Workforce Management product to centralize operations and free the planning team from manual tasks, focusing initially on schedule and vacation management.
Discovery and Research Steps:
- Interviewed agents, team leaders, and planners to identify pain points.
- Main issues: overreliance on spreadsheets and lack of process standardization.
- Defined minimum features for the first version: access profiles and bulk schedule uploads.
- Created and validated low-fidelity prototypes for each user workflow, enabling early adjustments and reducing rework.
Results
The tool's implementation yielded significant results in efficiency and savings. The main metrics achieved were: