Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Scheduling More Accurately During Busy Periods in the Contact Center
In the call center, forecast accuracy can seem like something of a moving target. Just about the time you achieve better forecast accuracy for the month, expectations of better forecasts shift, and the time periods you’re forecasting for become tighter. Great…you’ve improved the forecast for the month, but what about the week? The day?
Scheduling becomes extras challenging when your busy season also coincides with times that employees are taking time off, such as for summer family vacations or during holidays. (Or those days when employees are most likely to call in sick.) As you perfect your scheduling, following are some tips to help eliminate nasty surprises and staff the contact center more precisely to avoid over- and under-staffing when it comes to time off and vacations.
Schedule busy times well in advance. This allows you to be more flexible with employee vacation and days off. Planning well in advance also ensures the call center will be properly staffed to meet customer demand without sacrificing service quality. Consider offering time off to agents before your busiest times of year begin.
Offer overtime for busy times. If vacation season coincides with your busy time, it’s worth offering a bit of overtime to induce employees to move their time off for different times of the year. This way, employees have an extra incentive to show up for their shifts.
Offering non-monetary incentives. If you’re not swimming in extra cash to be able to offer overtime, consider mon-monetary benefits to fill in the schedule. This could be anything from gift cards to future time off.
Block off your busiest days a week as a “no days off” zone. For example, if Fridays are your slowest day, let agents know that Fridays as a day off will be easily approved. If Mondays are your busiest day, let agents know that days off will be approved under the strictest circumstances.
Invest in scheduling technology. Many scheduling solutions offer easy ways of incentivizing agents to work (and actually show up!) during busy periods. The intelligence from the reporting these solutions provide allows call center managers to study performance results and better understand staffing needs to make better scheduling decisions in the future.
Edited by Maurice Nagle