How to Handle Peak call volume in the call center

How to Handle Peak call volume in the call center

How to Handle Peak call volume in the call center

The call center is a customer-centric industry in which every customer is essential. But what if a call center receives more than the predicted call volume in a particular interval or a day?

In this blog, we will share with you some proven tips on How to Handle Peak call volume in the call center?

How to Handle Peak call volume in  the call center

Peak call volume depends on the business type and industry. For example, if a call center deals in the food aggregator business then peak call volume arrives in the night (dinner time) or in the day (Lunchtime) while if a call center deals in an e-commerce project it comes seasonal or during the time of the festival.

Whatever the duration is, a contact center should be ready to handle the volume effectively so that customers and clients both are happy.

Often this question is asked where you are appearing for a team leader or managerial level role

So here are some proven tips on How to Handle Peak call volume in the call center

1. Adequate staffing: In a normal scenario, the client sends the shift-wise manpower requirement for the entire week/ month. As a call center, you should prepare with adequate staffing as per the shift requirement also if the process runs 24*7 then the roster should be prepared likewise catering agents' week off and leave requests.

Also read: Importance of roster planning in a call center

Businesses that run with the requirement of 24*7 and 6 days working primarily have 14.28% of the planned week off and 4% of planned leaves.

Calculation of 14.28% =1 (week off per agent) / 7 (no. of days in a week).

Adequate staffing is not only about agent staffing, the support staff should also be equally staffed as per the ratio of agent-wise shift count.

In large contact centers and 24*7 requirement businesses, a WFM team is dedicated to preparing the roster. This is always advised to keep adding a 10% buffer count as per the manpower required by the client

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2. Avoid unplanned shrinkage: Now as the roster has already been planned, every agent and support staff should adhere to the roster. One single agent absenteeism can hit the entire planning, which also results in unnecessary pressure on other available agents

We can expect some medical exigencies in real-time this is the reason why I have advised you to keep the additional 10%  rostered count to avoid such conditions. If in case your roistered count is neck to neck as per the client requirement then all these real-time medical exigencies should be dealt with by the replacement of other agents to avoid any impact on call handling.

3. Real-time monitoring: Real-time call monitoring is like battling on the ground. This technology helps the supervisor to keep an eagle's eye on each and every agent sitting on the floor and enables to track all the calls. With the help of this tool call volume can easily be handled as we can track the AHT, hygiene, and behavior of every agent by sitting in one place. So if an agent is sitting idle or trying to avoid the calls, a supervisor can easily see this on the dashboard and action accordingly

4. Shift and break adherence: Shift adherence plays an important role to handle the call volume. If an agent is aligned in the 9 AM shift and not getting logged in on time, then calls may get abandoned during that period.

In a call center, basic hygiene and discipline are very important. Always ask the team member to reach 15 mins prior to the shift, so that they can all be set to handle the calls by the time when the shift starts.

Also, break adherence is an important factor to handle the peak call volume. Always try to release the breaks during the lean hours. As mentioned above, with the help of the RTM tool supervisors can alert team members when the call volume spikes up and when to release the agents for a break.

Often it is observed that we keep telling the agents to come on time, follow the roster and sometimes shout to follow the basic hygiene but never make them understand why it is important to follow the basic hygiene and how it impacts the business. For better efficacy, we should make them understand how the business operates and what consequences we may face if fail to handle the volume

5.IT and infra: To handle the peak call volume a contact centers IT and Infra should be robust. When you have adequate staff, roster planning everything on the place, but tools are not up to the mark then everything is in vain. A contact center's IT department should be well occupied with all advanced and required tools to handle the number of calls forecast by the client

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