Thames Water has rolled out a workforce management system to improve productivity for its customer service operations as part of a major IT refresh.

The system is being used to support the management of some 800 front- and back-office customer service employees. The water company claims to have achieved a 100 per cent improvement in productivity over its previous Excel-based set-up.

Under the new platform, the company now uses a centralised tool to manage its major client focused planning, forecasting and command centre operations. The benefits are already noticeable, according to Will Brown, head of planning at Thames Water.

"We've been able to tighten our schedule adherence across our contact centre and back-office operations, creating the equivalent of more than 10 employees additional capacity through better overall time management," he said.

"A key benefit is the automation of previously time-consuming procedures such as holiday bookings. We've already processed some 15,000 holiday applications, providing agents with much more control over their schedules and freeing up team leader time significantly."

The system was provided by Sabio.