Tuya cuts shift scheduling time by 35 % in its contact center and in-person service points with Inconcert’s Inteam

Professionalising workforce planning without losing intraday agility

At Tuya, the internal evolution of the operation came with a difficult reality: team planning was still highly manual and, on top of that, fragmented between the telephone channel and in-person service points. There was no single, clear model for staffing and scheduling, and every adjustment added friction and made it harder to maintain a reliable view of actual coverage.

The main problem appeared when demand changed within the same day. Adjusting resources to these kinds of peaks was complex and slow, which translated into inefficiencies in staff allocation and, as a result, a direct impact on service. Waiting times increased in both the telephone and in-person channels, operational pressure grew, and the risk of overtime escalated. As a consequence, the customer experience also suffered and became less consistent.

What Tuya needed was to move from simply fitting shifts together to planning with foresight, rules, and traceability, so capacity could be matched to real demand without relying on constant last-minute adjustments.

• A single planning model for both the telephone channel and in-person service points, with greater control over the workforce and a unified view of both environments to optimise coverage.
• To automate shift scheduling through defined rules, profiles, and skills.
• To improve responsiveness to intraday peaks with more precise interval-based planning.
• To increase traceability of changes, leave, absences, and actual availability.
• To speed up allocation and reallocation processes in order to reduce operational friction.
• To build a structured intraday forecast for calls, average handling time, and shrinkage, incorporating seasonality and special dates.
• To make decisions with greater confidence and anticipation, instead of turning planning into a daily race with no clear direction.

planning with data, rules, and visibility in order to stay ahead

The starting point was clear: if demand changes during the day, planning cannot depend on disconnected spreadsheets and last-minute adjustments. Tuya needed a single model connecting forecasting and scheduling, with traceability and the ability to adapt, so it could unify workforce control across the telephone channel and in-person service points instead of managing them as two separate operations.

That is where Inteam came in, a workforce management solution designed to optimise workforce management in contact centres and in-person operations, with an omnichannel forecasting algorithm that delivers more than 95% accuracy, along with capabilities to monitor activity minute by minute and act on deviations.

In Tuya’s case, the focus was placed on forecasting and planning, with implementation and stabilisation closely supported by the Inconcert team to ensure rapid adoption and extend the model across both the contact center and the in-person service points.

1. Smarter shift planning and intraday forecasting

With Inteam, Tuya automated workforce planning so it no longer depended on manual adjustments. The solution made it possible to build an intraday forecast from historical data integrated with its telephony provider and turn that forecast into shift grids that were more closely aligned with real demand, both in the telephone channel and at in-person service points.

This helped Tuya publish shift grids earlier and incorporate staff requirements and requests in a more structured way, reducing friction in daily operations and giving the business greater visibility over staffing levels in both environments.

Where was the improvement most visible?

• Tuya cut shift scheduling time by 35 %, which clearly eased the operational burden on the workforce team.
• Interval coverage became much more balanced, with less fatigue during peak demand periods and less idle time during off-peak hours.
• Shifts began to be communicated further in advance and more clearly, which also made it easier to manage changes, leave requests, and availability.
• The operation gained greater intraday responsiveness by relying on structured forecasts, such as calls, average handling time, and shrinkage, along with more consistent planning rules.
• On top of that, a single planning model was consolidated for both the telephone channel and in-person service points, making it possible to manage the entire workforce in a more coherent way.
• The impact was also visible in daily operations: schedule adherence rose by 22 %, meaning the extent to which agents comply in real time with planned hours, breaks, and tasks improved significantly.
• This was accompanied by a very noticeable improvement in operational availability: absenteeism in the physical channel dropped by 83 % and late arrivals fell by 57 %.
• Meanwhile, in the CATTs where the workforce model had already been implemented, productivity was 36 % higher than in centres where it had not yet been rolled out.

2. A single model for the telephone channel and service points, with interval coverage

One of the key changes was centralised management: a single planning model for both the telephone channel and the physical channel, or CATTs, with common rules and visibility. This translated into better interval-level coverage, which reduces fatigue during peak hours and avoids idle time during quieter periods, with a direct impact on productivity.

What does interval coverage deliver?

• A more precise fit with real demand across time slots.
• Fewer imbalances between peaks and troughs.
• A clearer view for anticipating pressure points before they become visible in the operation.

From manual planning to data-driven operational control

Thanks to Inteam, Tuya left behind a manual and fragmented planning model and moved to one that is more structured, traceable, and sustainable over time. The operation gained agility in scheduling shifts, adjusting resources more effectively, and responding better to day-to-day changes.

This progress was consolidated by turning shift scheduling into a rules-based model that is more consistent, more transparent, and above all less dependent on manual intervention. As a result, the operation became more agile in planning and communicating shift grids in a timely way, freeing up workforce team capacity so it could focus on optimisation.

The project was also supported by very close collaboration between Tuya and Inconcert, with iterations to refine forecasts, criteria, and rules until they matched operational reality. These improvements took place within a broader plan to strengthen operational monitoring, also supported by real-time measurement and complementary reporting. As a result, Tuya gained a stronger foundation for making decisions, reallocating resources, and responding more quickly to every change during the day.