Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Before the Holiday Chaos Hits, Consider Taking Your Call Center for a 'Test Drive'
That most magical time of the year is almost upon us: customers call the contact center day and night for support, agents pull their hair out, IT personnel struggle to keep up with all the patches, diagnostics and fix they must implement, billing and warehousing and other back-office functions hum at 110 capacity and everyone on the organization sees a 10-point spike in blood pressure. It’s a fact of life for many business-to-consumer businesses at the holidays. But why should it be? Did the fact that November and December followed October surprise everyone this year?
Planning for the holiday period is vital, and “planning” should mean more than just extending the call center’s hours. It’s critical that contact centers examine historical data from years past and make accurate forecasts of this year’s call volume. Once you’ve taken on extra help – turning part-time workers into full-time workers, hire temporary work, let agents work from home or outsource part of the call volume to a third party – it’s time to check and see if you’re really prepared.
In a recent blog post, Chuck Ciarlo, CEO of Monet Software (News - Alert), says it’s a good idea to run simulations for call center volume spikes.
“Here’s an idea for the next time you anticipate a call spike: take the contact center for a test drive,” he wrote. “There is no substitute for practice, not only to confirm that you have the right resources in place, but to allow your agents (particularly the newer hires) to acclimate to the pressures of a more hectic work environment. The objective is to recreate real-world conditions, which means you’ll need personnel to take on the role of callers, and agents and managers reviewing results as they happen.”
Remember the old adage, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” “Practice, practice, practice.”? The same applies here. Once the real call volume begins, it’s too late to discover that your infrastructure and your processes (or your agents and managers) aren’t up to the task. By performing drills, according to Ciarlo, contact centers can reveal unforeseen hurdles that can potentially impact customer service when the real moment arrives.
“It may also be a good idea to add an unexpected challenge to observe how your team responds,” he wrote. “Let’s face it: you can’t plan for everything, so this is a chance to find out if you have agents and managers in place who can adapt under fire.”
By simulating heavy call volume spikes, you can be forewarned and forearmed. Involve the IT department and every member of the contact center team to observe where problems occur during the drill and report their observations. It’s better to have the issues crop up during a simulation held at a quiet time of call volume than when the real moment arrives and real customer relationships are at stake. The customers you impress this year will be the customers you keep next year at the holiday time, and for many years after.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi