How Hiab UK Reduced Abandoned Calls to 4% with Soon

Key results

• Call answer rate is now up to an average of around 96 percent
• Up to 27 percent additional revenue generation through dedicated non-voice activity
• Employee satisfaction surveys showed a 19 percent year-on-year increase in the work/life balance
• Up to 28 percent increase in overtime acceptance during peak demand
• Around 3 hours saved per week through template reuse alone

Hiab UK Service Operations Robert Hodgkins, Continuous Improvement Specialist

Hiab UK is part of Hiab, a global leader in on-road load handling solutions, supporting customers across multiple markets worldwide, with a strong focus on innovation and sustainability. This story focuses specifically on Hiab UK’s service operation, where the team set out to enhance structure, visibility and scalability in workforce planning.

The team previously relied on spreadsheets alongside their central HR system. That approach supported the operation for a period of time, but it relied heavily on manual coordination and became increasingly difficult to scale as business growth, service demand and operational complexity grew. Making even small adjustments meant checking multiple sources, and relying heavily on manual intervention.

The existing approach made it hard to maintain consistent service levels, coordinate breaks and activities efficiently, and give leadership a clear, real-time view across the operation.

Moving from reactive to proactive

Hiab UK built, together with Soon, a structured bi-weekly rhythm with clear visibility across the entire operation. For the first time, there was one central source of truth that everyone could rely on.

Since implementing Soon, Hiab UK has systematically removed spreadsheet-based scheduling in favour of a more structured way of working.

“We have moved from a reactive operation to proactive service planning and scheduling.”

Robert Hodgkins Continuous Improvement Specialist, Hiab UK

With everything in one place, the team can spot gaps before they happen, anticipate pressure points, and make informed decisions earlier. That visibility also helps Hiab UK focus training and development activities on the right colleagues. When the operation needs to flex, the team can do so while still maintaining the right level of coverage for customers.

Bringing structure to complexity

Hiab UK’s operation includes multiple constraints every day. Breaks, lunch windows, inbound & outbound calls, administrative work, and shifting priorities all need to be balanced.

Before Soon, those requirements were managed manually. The process depended on hands-on coordination. As the pace and complexity of the operation increased in line with business growth, the knock-on effects could include missed calls, missed breaks, reduced consistency, increased stress, and disengagement across the team.

Now, those rules are built directly into the system, schedules are created with the right balance automatically. Service coverage is protected while still allowing time for non-voice work.

“The automated staggering allows us to protect service quality throughout the day whilst still ensuring the right activities are completed at the right time.”

Robert Hodgkins, Hiab UK

This did not just improve operations. It also improved the employee experience, colleagues can now rely on regular and fair breaks and lunches. Combined with hybrid working, this supports a healthier work/life balance. Employee satisfaction surveys showed a 19 percent year-on-year increase in the work/life balance metric following implementation.

Confidence in service coverage

One of the most critical requirements for Hiab UK was maintaining consistent Voice coverage. Instead of guessing whether enough people are available, the team can clearly see coverage throughout the day and adjust proactively. That visibility led to a dramatic shift in performance with the amount of abandoned calls reducing from peaks of up to 46 percent to an average of around 4 percent.

At the same time, Hiab UK was able to move colleagues into more dedicated administration time where appropriate, while still protecting the minimum level of Voice cover required to support customers. In some cases, this supported up to 27 percent additional revenue generation through dedicated non-voice activity.

“We can now clearly see where gaps may appear and predict pressure points in advance.”

Robert Hodgkins, Hiab UK

It also gave the team far greater confidence when communicating operational capacity to SLT and HLT, backed by visible results.

A more self-managed team

As visibility improved, so did ownership. With shared schedules and calendar reminders, employees have a clear view of their day. They know what they are doing, when they are doing it, and how it fits into the wider operation.

The wider transparency has also encouraged a more open culture across the department. Colleagues have greater visibility, better understanding of what is planned, and more ownership of managing their time effectively.

“Colleagues have greater visibility of the day and more ownership of managing their time effectively.”

Robert Hodgkins, Hiab UK

Just as importantly, visibility has encouraged people to speak up when something does not look right, helping the team continuously improve fairness and equality across the department.

Overtime without the chaos

Overtime used to be handled through manual communication and coordination.

Previously, the service operation relied on multi-tab spreadsheets, manual calendar input, Gmail confirmations of hours worked, and chasing responses.

With Open Seats, the process became structured and transparent.

• overtime is visible and easy to opt into
• demand and cost are easier to predict
• shifts can be published simultaneously for fairness
• managers spend less time administering requests

For colleagues, Open Seats provides flexibility and choice. For operational leaders, it gives a clearer view of demand and helps forecast overtime expenditure using historical trends.

Built around real operations

From the start, Hiab UK worked closely with the Soon team to ensure the system matched their real-world operation. The setup needed to reflect Hiab UK’s essential operational requirements before it could support the senior leadership proposal. Rather than adapting their workflow to fit a generic scheduling model, Hiab UK shaped Soon around how their service environment actually works.

“It was important that the system reflected the reality of our service environment rather than a generic scheduling model.”

Robert Hodgkins, Hiab UK

That collaboration resulted in a system that now runs seamlessly and continues to adapt as the operation evolves.

The result

Today, Hiab UK runs a structured, predictable, and scalable service operation. There is clear visibility across the team, greater confidence in service coverage, and a system that supports both operational performance and employee experience. Most importantly, Hiab UK can now explain its operational position to senior leadership with confidence, backed by a live and structured view of the workforce plan.

For Hiab UK more broadly, the story also shows how the right workforce management approach can support service excellence within a specialist, customer-facing operation. As Hiab continues to grow its services division across the UK, the team is looking to embed Soon further across additional sites.

“Soon has transformed how we run our UK service operation, giving us the structure, visibility and confidence to plan proactively, protect customer coverage, and create a more consistent and fair experience for our colleagues.”

Robert HodgkinsContinuous Improvement Specialist, Hiab UK

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