Mark Palmer didn’t set out to join Assembled — let alone become its first European hire. In fact, he didn’t even know the company existed until last year. But after more than a decade working in workforce management (WFM) — becoming an expert in legacy systems, enduring the occasional spreadsheet-driven process, and leading teams through the evolving demands of customer support — he stumbled across Assembled by chance.
What started as a casual introduction quickly turned into something more. Within months, he wasn’t just using Assembled — he was advocating for it. And before long, he was pitching himself for a role on the team, just as Assembled was looking to deepen its presence in Europe.
This is the story of how a seasoned WFM leader saw the future of workforce management and decided to help build it.
Mark’s journey in workforce management began with the tools that had long defined the industry: legacy systems.
"In almost every role I had, we used Aspect, so I became a power user early in my career. I didn’t work with many other tools," he says. "I did have a brief stint at Amazon, where they didn’t use any workforce management tool at all — which was an interesting experience, but not one I was eager to repeat."
Like many seasoned workforce managers, Mark became deeply specialized in one system. And with that specialization came a challenge: the tools were powerful, but they weren’t built to be intuitive.
"You kind of need an expert to get any benefit out of legacy WFM tools — they’re big and complex. So I was able to be useful to companies because I had that deep experience gained over many years,” he explains. “It’s not like Assembled, where you can train someone on the tool in a matter of weeks. You really need someone with a few years working in it to actually get it to do what you need it to do."
In Mark's last role, where he was leading the global workforce team at a premium performance running brand, they used Alvaria (formerly Aspect). The tool was functional, but as customer support evolved — with more digital channels, new scheduling demands, and an increasing focus on flexibility — it became more of a burden than a solution.
"Our legacy WFM tool kind of stuck out like a sore thumb," Mark recalls. "It didn’t really fit in with the company. And over time, as we used it, we realized that it was getting more and more difficult to do simple things."
Mark first came across Assembled by accident.
"A colleague of mine, a vendor manager, came across Assembled’s BPO Manager feature on the website and set up a call with the sales team. As an afterthought, he invited me to join. That’s when I realized Assembled wasn’t just a vendor management tool — it was a full workforce management solution with vendor management as one of its features," he says.
His first impression?
"I was super impressed with Assembled from the first time I saw it. I kind of realized really quickly that Assembled was solving lots of problems that we had as a customer service team."
Unlike legacy WFM tools, which often required custom integrations, Assembled worked right out of the box.
"Assembled stood out from its competitors because it was built natively for a modern tech stack," Mark says. "Right out of the box, it worked with everything — our telephony platform, CRM, HR tool, email calendar system, even Slack. In the past, I had to lead a custom integration between Aspect and Salesforce, along with other tools, but with Assembled, all of that was already in place."
With Assembled, everything just clicked.
"The actual setup time for Assembled was a number of weeks, whereas this was a months-long process with the other tools."
Once Mark’s team implemented Assembled, the difference was immediate.
One of the biggest transformations? BPO management.
"Our BPOs handled scheduling within our workforce management tool, but that quickly became a challenge," Mark explains. "We essentially became tech support for our outsourcing team, helping them navigate the system just to get schedules in place. We were not only paying for their licenses but also spending a significant amount of time supporting them."
With Assembled, everything changed.
"We were able to shift much of that workload back to our BPO partners — which is what they’re there for in the first place. Instead of acting as tech support and micromanaging schedules, we could simply link directly into their systems. The visibility we gained in a single pane of glass was really transformational."
His team also eliminated the manual workarounds they’d relied on for years.
"We’d been doing a lot of forecasting requirements for email work or chat work in spreadsheets and then loading that into Aspect. We were able to stop these manual processes and just use the WFM tool as it was intended once we were working in Assembled."
During Assembled’s onboarding process, Mark met with Assembled Co-founder and CEO Ryan Wang over lunch in Berlin. Their conversation quickly turned to workforce management, the product’s future, and a key challenge — while Assembled had a growing number of European customers, it had no team members on the ground to support them. That gap signaled a larger opportunity: Assembled wasn’t just selling into Europe — it was beginning to lay the foundation for a stronger presence in the region.
That conversation stuck with him.
"Ryan asked me, ‘Do you think we need someone in Europe?’ And I think at that moment, a lightbulb went off in my head," Mark says.
The next day, Mark reached out.
"I kept thinking about what he said — Assembled needed someone in Europe. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that not only was the need there, but I was the right person for the role."
From there, the conversation took off. Mark worked with the team to define a customer generalist role that leveraged both his expertise and his passion for helping workforce managers succeed.
"What really excited me was how they approached the role. They said, ‘Here’s what we think the role should cover, and here’s where we see your strengths — but we don’t want to be too rigid about the boundaries.’ The idea that I could shape the role around my skills and passions was incredibly appealing."
Today, as a customer generalist at Assembled, Mark gets to help workforce teams navigate the shift from legacy systems to modern workforce management.
“There’s naturally a process of adaptation when switching between different WFM tools,” he says. “I think what Assembled has done a really good job of is rethinking which metrics are most relevant to the support teams of today, and focusing the product around those metrics.”
Looking ahead, Mark sees AI playing a bigger role in workforce management — not just for agents, but for WFM teams themselves.
"I can see a future where AI plays a bigger role in decision-making—helping teams leverage available data to improve scheduling and forecasting," he says.
And as Assembled continues to grow, Mark is eager to share what he’s learned.
"I love talking about workforce management — you might have guessed," he laughs.
Mark’s journey — from WFM leader and Assembled user to Assembled team member — is a testament to what makes Assembled different. It’s not just another workforce management tool. It’s a tool built by people who have lived the challenges firsthand — and believe in a better way forward.
