Genesys Cloud 3 Solves GSG Staffing Challenge

Graphic Solutions Group (GSG), a provider of screen, digital, and sign equipment and supplies, has 10 branch locations across the country and has a combination of inside sales reps working remotely and onsite.

The company had a “good problem” starting in early 2021, with quick growth that acceler­ated in the spring, says George Temple, director of customer experience. That growth, combined with the supply chain breakdowns that were hitting graphics arts suppliers and companies in other industries, meant that calls were accelerating to the point that many were going unanswered.

“Everything was out of stock, so our average talk time was going up tremendously because we were cross-referencing with different suppliers to find other products that might work for a customer,” adds Lauren Forte, GSG’s director of inside sales. “Our service levels really dropped.”

By that summer, GSG looked for a solution to its staffing needs.

“You probably wonder why we just didn’t hire a lot of people and train them,” Temple says. “But you can’t hire inside salespeople and train them fast enough.”

The company examined how firms across other industries were handling similar issues in light of the volatility in the job market, which was stressing workforce levels at various companies, even those that weren’t growing, Forte says. “We looked at what others were doing right, because we knew it wasn’t just a GSG issue.”

The company started looking into workforce management solutions and reached out to its rep at Genesys, since the company was already using the Genesys Cloud 2 call center solution in its call center. Temple had looked at other workforce solutions a couple of years earlier and chose not to revisit those. The company quickly upgraded to Genesys Cloud 3, which included workforce management and gamification features.

It was a simple upgrade, according to Temple: “We didn’t even have to call in an integration team. Nothing was really different; they just upgraded our license. Genesys helped us set everything up. Once we signed the contract, it was literally the flip of a switch. In the past, with other software vendors, you buy something and they’re gone the next day. The Genesys guru came in and helped us with the training. It was super easy for me, all of our supervisors, and all of our agents to learn how to use the product.”

But the upgraded license included the important workforce management and gamification features that GSG didn’t have before.

The solution includes short- and long-term scheduling capabilities, quality assurance and monitoring, call recording (which GSG isn’t currently using), and gamification.

GSG started seeing the benefits shortly after going live with the solution in November 2021.

“Gamification is a really good way for everybody to feel like [part of] a team,” Temple says. Rather than coming down on employees to follow schedules, it allows everybody to have skin in the game and not feel like they are constantly being bombarded by phone calls.”

Forte adds: “Utilizing gamification in the workplace increases our engagement in meetings. It made our training more successful in terms of employees retaining and applying information.”

With improved scheduling, employees weren’t as burned out, according to Forte, and as a result of that and the more successful training, GSG had a dramatic 63 percent increase in service levels, a 62 percent decrease in abandoned calls, and a 74 percent decrease in caller average wait time.

GSG figures it saved $250,000 annually because better scheduling meant it didn’t incur the cost of staff additions, and workforce retention improved, saving on the resources required to train new staff.

With the omnichannel and scheduling capabilities of the solution, GSG earlier this year added webchat for customer interactions. Temple says the company will continue to explore other channel options for customer interactions. 

The Payoff

After going live with Genesys Cloud 3, GSG saw the following results:

• a 63 percent increase in service levels;
• a 74 percent decrease in caller wait times; and
• a 62 percent decrease in call abandonment rate.