With an ambition to blanket the world in pet love, Rover is not just a company but a boon to all pet owners. Since its inception in 2011, Rover has unflinchingly connected pet lovers with optimal care providers, fostering an ecosystem for those who cherish the unconditional affection of pets.
Seth Ettwein has spent 20 years in the customer experience industry, specializing in workforce management (WFM). A Beagle owner himself, Seth hopped on board as Rover's Senior Program Manager of Workforce Management in January 2022. He brought with him a treasure trove of experiences, from braving the graveyard shift as an agent at Alaska Airlines to fostering a transformative career in the WFM sphere at Microsoft and AWS.
It was at Alaska Airlines where Seth's intrigue toward WFM was born. He found himself questioning the management methodologies — why are there so many calls in the queue? Why would there be 50 agents sitting idle? When presented with these questions, his supervisor proposed the idea of a career in WFM, an idea that shaped the next two decades of Seth's life.
Seth has since been at the heart of legacy WFM tool transformations with industry stalwarts like Alvaria (formerly Aspect), Genesys, NICE IEX, and Verint. His innovative streak led him to co-develop a shift bidding application with his brother in the early 2000s and build the ‘lite’ version of a WFM product at Microsoft. Seth was not merely a witness to the evolving WFM scene; he was an active participant and shaper.
The day Seth stepped foot in Rover in 2022, the company was working with two business process outsourcing (BPO) providers and an in-house team. Trust and safety, a critical area, had a team of 70, which soon swelled to 120. Seth's immediate challenge was to optimize staffing for this rapidly expanding team. He quickly identified two issues that needed immediate attention: an overestimating forecast model and the prevalent issue of agents having a substantial amount of free time.
Rover’s previous WFM tool wasn’t cutting it
Before Seth's tenure at Rover, Calabrio had been the company’s tool of choice for WFM. However, Seth quickly discerned that Calabrio's functionality was far from perfect for Rover's needs.
For starters, Calabrio's forecasting capabilities were rather basic and required extensive configuration. The absence of a granular view was a glaring issue — all six distinct work types were indiscriminately lumped together. Seth's need for a queue-specific breakdown wasn't met. Moreover, the forecasts overlooked the crucial aspect of seasonality, forcing Seth and his team into the tiresome workaround of running the forecast a dozen times to capture a full year's picture.
The scheduling aspect also posed significant challenges for the Rover team. Calabrio's interface was clunky, and it required setting availabilities on a per-user basis. These “shift containers” were unnecessarily restrictive and failed to produce the customized schedules Rover required.
The limited metrics provided by Calabrio were a further frustration. With only phone utilization and occupancy available, Seth found it difficult to optimize the team's efficiency and prevent overstaffing.
Compounding all of these issues was an unresponsive support team. Following the recent acquisition of Teleopti by Calabrio, establishing a reliable point of contact became an uphill task, making it virtually impossible for Rover to find support in their biggest moments of need.
In a sea of legacy WFM, Rover clocks Assembled
Beset by unsatisfactory product experiences and inadequate support, Seth was faced with a critical decision. The need for a new WFM solution was palpable. As luck would have it, a post from a trusted colleague on LinkedIn raving about Assembled caught his eye, prompting him to include Assembled in Rover's search for a more efficient solution.
Seth put Assembled to the test against an array of industry veterans, including Verint, Alvaria, and NICE IEX. Despite their long-standing legacies, these solutions came with significant drawbacks.
“The legacy solutions were too expensive and offered way more than we actually needed. Assembled had the exact integration and alignment with our tech stack, out of the box. It was the perfect fit of functionality and price for our team.” Seth Ettwein, Senior Program Manager of Workforce Management at Rover
From the onset, Seth's interactions with the Assembled team were positive, marked by transparency, openness, and unmatched responsiveness. This collaborative spirit resonated with the entire Rover team, including procurement.
The stellar partnership approach, coupled with Assembled's perfect blend of features and affordability, led Seth to choose Assembled as Rover's new WFM platform.
“The implementation was incredibly straightforward. Assembled delivered upon everything promised in the sales cycle — no caveats or catch-alls. Setting up the integrations was very straight forward. For instance, the Maestro and Slack integrations were stupid easy — they immediately worked.” Seth Ettwein, Senior Program Manager of Workforce Management at Rover
Seth went ahead with the rollout, starting with the internal team before moving to the external customer experience group. Rover's BPO in San Jose, Costa Rica found Assembled exceptionally intuitive to use, cementing Seth's decision.
Post-implementation, setting KPI targets to measure return on investment has been a walk in the park for Seth. The platform allows him to monitor utilization and occupancy and set a goal of 80% shift occupancy, which was virtually impossible with Calabrio. The clarity and granularity Assembled provides in predicting service levels have proved invaluable for the Operations Managers in executing plans effectively.
Seth leverages Assembled's in-app reports and the convenience of exporting this data into spreadsheets to precisely calculate team occupancy and shrinkage as per Rover's definitions — a testament to having access to data on his terms. Although he's only in the early stages of post-implementation, Seth is confident of boosting efficiency by 1–2%, a potential game-changer for Rover.
As for the future, Seth is eagerly awaiting collaboration with the Data Analytics team to leverage Assembled's Fivetran connector. His goal is to create a custom visualization dashboard, integrating all of Rover’s KPIs into one place for an even more streamlined operation.
Rover sets its sights on a data-driven future
The journey of Rover's transition from Calabrio to Assembled has been transformative. Seth Ettwein, with his deep expertise and visionary approach, recognized the drawbacks of their existing system and navigated through the sea of options to choose Assembled — a platform that promised (and delivered) simplicity, functionality, and affordability.
Assembled's implementation brought about immediate positive changes within Rover. Its intuitive design facilitated seamless rollouts, the granularity in reporting empowered the operations managers, and the ease of setting KPIs has given Rover the agility and confidence to optimize its WFM.
This transition not only revolutionized Rover's day-to-day operations but also laid the groundwork for a data-driven future. With the prospect of custom visualization dashboards and integrated KPIs, Rover stands at the forefront of efficiency and innovation in WFM.
At the heart of it all is a platform that understands Rover's needs and an ongoing partnership defined by trust, responsiveness, and a shared vision. Indeed, Assembled has proven to be not just a software solution for Rover but a reliable partner in their ongoing pursuit of excellence. As Seth navigates his post-implementation journey, Rover's WFM future shines brighter than ever.
