Surfboard
About Surfboard
Surfboard is the first collaborative scheduling platform for customer support, allowing teams to set shift patterns based on forecasted demand, schedule an agent's individual activities (live chat, email, calls), and notify the team of any shift changes throughout the day.
Surfboard don't see customer support agents (they call them surfers) as metrics or numbers, like traditional workforce management platforms. They see them as human beings, and have built a scheduling platform that treats them as such.
The Surfboard product has four distinct elements; Forecasting, shift planning, employee scheduling, and communication.
Forecasting allows support teams to predict their support levels months in to the future by analysing historical ticket data and matching that with the level of coverage needed to ensure great customer experience.
Shift planning enables support teams to collaboratively set shift patterns that suit managers, surfers, and customers, without sacrificing the teams lifestyle, or jeopardising customer support levels.
Support leaders can schedule their teams to a granular level. Surfers can then view their weekly & daily schedules, and even see what activities and task they have at any given time throughout the day. Teams can even see who is working on what, and integrate their calendars with Surfboard to block out time for vacations, meetings, and anything else they need to add to their schedule.
Finally, tying all of this together is communication. Having integrated with Slack, Surfers get regular notifications before any of their tasks or activities are about to change, and can talk to their team about their schedule or whatever else they need to chat about. They can also see what their colleagues are working on, and what their schedule looks like.
Key benefits of Surfboard
Advanced forecasting
Customisable shift planning
Collaborative employee scheduling
Connections & Integrations
Messaging & notifications
Images
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Reviews
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- Industry: Financial Services Software
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 1-5 months
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support Software
- Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10
Great, reliable product with smooth onboarding experience
Reviewed on 24/01/2023
Great product, great onboarding, amazing support and a real time saver!
Great product, great onboarding, amazing support and a real time saver!
Pros
Surfboard is just aesthetically pleasing, my team love the look, and I love the look. It makes identifying your Activities much easier when we can colour-coordinate them. The onboarding experience was smooth and fun, [sensitive content hidden] and the team made sure to tick every box and dot every i to make sure we were running smoothly and anything not going so well was resolved quickly.I love that it does most of the heavy lifting, meaning I can concentrate more on other tasks than having to monotonously schedule each day out, it gives me a lot of time back.
Cons
The only feature I have run into issues with is the "rescheduling" feature only allows for a full week to be rescheduled instead of 1 day or one person in the team. Although I understand why this is the case, to make sure that all areas of the Q are covered and shared fairly, I think for smaller teams we need more flexibility to change one person's shift without disrupting a full team's rota. I know a new feature may be in the works for this already, just showing again Surfboard attention to client needs.
- Industry: Retail
- Company size: 51–200 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support Software
- Likelihood to recommend 8.0 /10
User friendly and customised workforce management
Reviewed on 24/01/2023
The team are very available and helpful, there is a lot on the roadmap and the product it always...
The team are very available and helpful, there is a lot on the roadmap and the product it always evolving in many ways to our needs. We've been really valued by the team and feedback has been taken onboard. Its been a gamechanger for our team in terms of our daily workflow and intraday management.
Pros
The product is easy to view and understand by our team and new features and improvements are constantly being made,
Cons
It still needs some work on the rescheduling function (in the works) to make real time changes more easily. Would be useful to be able to allign with budgeting for the forecasting area.
- Industry: Retail
- Company size: 201–500 Employees
- Used Daily for 1-5 months
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support Software
- Likelihood to recommend 4.0 /10
Surfboard for CD review
Reviewed on 24/01/2023
Surfboard has helped us bring a clearer vision of the team and also activity needs. It has changed...
Surfboard has helped us bring a clearer vision of the team and also activity needs. It has changed the way we spread the team across different channels (phones, chats, emails, etc) and give much more structure to the day.
Pros
It's visually pleasing and the view of the day is clear. The support team is great and super reactive - they always take our feedback in consideration and work on quick fixes. I've seen so much improvement already since the day when we first used Surfboard to now, so I'm confident it will keep on improving.
Cons
it's quite tricky to get the algorithm to work exactly as we would love to. Often we see days where activities are not shared evenly between the team, some other activities are missing, etc.It still requires a lot of manual adjustments before we can solely follow the schedule. This is why I would be a bit hesitant to recommend it as it is now, as it is still quite time consuming to get the schedule accurate each day.
- Industry: Consumer Goods
- Company size: 51–200 Employees
- Used Daily for 1-5 months
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support Software
- Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10
A breath of fresh air
Reviewed on 24/01/2023
Overall I've enjoyed this experience, it's saved managers hours each week and there is a marked...
Overall I've enjoyed this experience, it's saved managers hours each week and there is a marked improvement in team performance. Over time the tool has learned our habits and requires fewer manual edits over time.
Pros
The automation of tasking based on prior inbound tickets is a lifesaver. It takes the guesswork out of scheduling peoples' weeks and ensures they're where they need to be for our customers. Slack integration is also amazing, making sure the team are where they need to be and switching tasks on-time.
Cons
Having to create a calendar and invite a Surfboard email account to track holiday and OOO was a bit clunky but it's become easier over time as updates roll out regularly.
- Industry: Retail
- Company size: 51–200 Employees
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support Software
- Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10
Surfboard is a Must Have!
Reviewed on 31/01/2023
I would definitely recommend Surfboard- the platform and the people behind it are brilliant.
I would definitely recommend Surfboard- the platform and the people behind it are brilliant.
Pros
Surfboard has revolutionised our way of scheduling. It's easy to use for both admins and users, it offers great features and there are more on the way.The top releases for us are Slack integration for the Team and shift pattern rotation for the admins.
Cons
It would be great to be able to plan daily activities more than a week ahead but I know this is already in the works! We're also very keen to see reporting on the activities breakdown per surfer per month!
Surfboard FAQs
Below are some frequently asked questions for Surfboard.Q. What type of pricing plans does Surfboard offer?
Surfboard offers the following pricing plans:
- Pricing model: Subscription
- Free Trial: Not Available
Q. Who are the typical users of Surfboard?
Surfboard has the following typical customers:
11–50, 51–200, 201–500, 501–1,000
Q. What languages does Surfboard support?
Surfboard supports the following languages:
English
Q. Does Surfboard support mobile devices?
Surfboard supports the following devices:
Q. What other apps does Surfboard integrate with?
Surfboard integrates with the following applications:
Aircall, BambooHR, CharlieHR, Dixa, Google Calendar, Gusto, Intercom, Kustomer, Microsoft Outlook, Oyster, Payfit, Personio, Slack, Twilio Flex, Workday HCM
Q. What level of support does Surfboard offer?
Surfboard offers the following support options:
Email/Help Desk, FAQs/Forum, Knowledge Base Software, Chat
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