Tag Archives: call-volume-spikes

How to Successfully Handle Call Volume During Peak Times [Webinar]

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How to Successfully Handle Call Volume During Peak Times [Webinar]Every call center faces the problem of unpredictable spikes in call volume. Sometimes the causes are understood, even anticipated. However, in many cases these peak periods come as a shock to the system. The reality is that voice remains the most preferred channel for customers, but its popularity comes at a price: long hold times.

Unfortunately, the effect of this on the customer experience is significant: 60% of customers will abandon a call after just one minute of waiting on hold. If you want to improve customer loyalty and keep your CSAT scores healthy, you’ll need to make sure you have the right safety nets in place. Continue reading →

When Adding Call-Backs to Your Call Center, Beware The “Free” Option

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When Adding Call-backs to Your Call Center, Beware The “Free” OptionThe call center experience is under great scrutiny from today’s consumers. There are many ways to fall short of their expectations. One surefire way of doing so is to put callers on hold. Tolerance for long wait times has been getting lower and lower. If the wait is longer than a few minutes, callers will complain to your agents (leading to longer handle times) and they will vent on social media (see onholdwith.com). Not good.

On the other hand, call center managers have to be cost-conscious in their approach to staffing. Hold times are often a simple consequence of a limited budget for agents. Luckily, there is a way to lessen the impact of hold times, without hiring agents: Offer your callers a call-back instead.

You can add call-back functionality to your call center through an independent vendor (like Fonolo) or through your existing call center platform, if it is available. Let’s look at the pros and cons of both options. Continue reading →

The ROI of Call-Backs for Your Call Center [eBook]

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The ROI of Call-Backs for Your Call CenterIn a perfect world, your contact center would never put callers on hold. If hold time is unavoidable, the next best thing to do is offer a call-back option. Removing the frustration of hold time will lead to happier callers. For many contact centers, this improvement in the customer experience is the primary, or even sole, motivation for adding call-backs. (If you need a reminder of how much callers dislike waiting on hold, just take a moment to scan the tweets at onholdwith.com.) But there’s another angle to this story.

When deployed correctly, call-backs can deliver concrete ROI through several paths: lowered abandon rates, shorter handle time, reduced telco cost and more consistent call volume. In this new eBook, we’ll present these paths to ROI one-by-one, and walk through the calculation needed to build a business case for your organization. To make the math easier to follow, this document will use a fictitious company “ExampleCo” for all the calculations. It will draw from our experiences deploying Fonolo’s cloud-based call-backs, but the concepts are equally applicable to any call-back solution. Continue reading →

Why We Love Call-Backs (And You Should, Too!)

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Why We Love Call-Backs (And You Should, Too!)Consumers today are more demanding than ever, especially when it comes to the call center experience. If you leave callers on hold, they will complain to your agents (leading to longer handle times) and they will vent on social media.

Meanwhile, call centers are under pressure to live up to these expectations while keeping costs contained. If your company has long wait times, and if you don’t have the budget to staff up, you should consider adding a call-back solution.

Simply put, replacing hold-time with a call-back is the closest thing to a “magic bullet” that you’ll find in the call center world.

Continue reading →

Is Your Call Center Spiking on Mondays? Here’s a Solution for You

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Is Your Call Center Spiking on Monday’s? Here’s a Solution for YouMonday: It’s the start of a new week and everyone is back to reality, trying to check everything off their “To-Do” lists. The problem? Mondays are notorious for high agent absenteeism. Whether it’s falling ill or just wanting to extend the weekend, being understaffed on Monday’s is commonplace in the contact center world. This, coupled with high call volume, can create a major meltdown for any call center.

However, there is a rather simple solution that can help smooth out those dreaded spikes in call volume, while making life easier for those agents who showed up to work.

Continue reading →

Why You Should Invest in Call-Back Technology this Year

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Why You Should Invest in Call-Back Technology this YearCall centers are under a lot of pressure to deliver on consumer expectations while keeping costs contained. That central challenge was there even before social media, chat, and email showed up to complicate matters. Those alternate channels have taken some pressure off of voice calls, but the flip side of that is that the calls that do end up with an agent require more time and effort. As a result, many companies still have long wait times to speak to an agent. If you don’t have the budget to staff up, another option you should consider is call-backs.

Simply put, replacing hold-time with a call-back is the closest thing to a “magic bullet” that you’ll find in the call center world. Call-backs make callers happier, and agents more efficient!

 

Continue reading →

New Industry Report Shows Virtual Queuing Maturing

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New Industry Report Shows Virtual Queuing MaturingOne industry report that we always anticipate at this time of year is the annual “Contact Center Decision Maker’s Guide” from ContactBabel. The 9th edition of the report weighs in at a massive 300-pages with tables and graphs examining every aspect of the contact center world. Topics include WFM, headsets, agent recruiting, voice biometrics, and more.

The report also includes a chapter on queuing technologies and we were pleased to see that the industry is making good progress on this front. Best of all the report is completely free. Continue reading →

Is Your Call Center Prepared for Unexpected Spikes in Call Volume? [Vlog]

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Is Your Call Center Prepared for Unexpected Spikes in Call Volume?Today is a great day at the call center. The message boards assure you that all is well, meaning your support team is in complete control. Phew!

Then all at once, the message boards light up like Christmas trees, the phones start ringing off the hook and your agents turn to you with that “deer in the headlights” look. Facing spikes in call volume is one of the top challenges for contact centers.

It doesn’t matter how many support reps you have available: When spikes hit your contact center, hold times escalate, customers become frustrated, SLAs become impossible to meet, and your agents suffer the consequences. The bad news is that your great day at the office just took a turn for the worse. The good news is that we have a solution to this problem. Continue reading →

[Webinar] 4 Contact Center Tips for Managing Spikes in Call Volume

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[Webinar] 4 Call Center Tips for Managing Spikes in Call VolumeCan you relate to this statement: “We are generally staffed well enough to handle normal call volume but find that we regularly have spikes that we can’t handle.”

Rest assured you’re not alone. Even call centers that manage forecasting and establish strict SLA’s experience spikes in call volume. Anything from extreme weather conditions to product recalls can flood your call center in an instant. The result is an increase in average handle time, an escalation in hold time, and frustrated customers. Continue reading →

[Whitepaper] The Contact Center Guide to Managing Spikes in Call Volume

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[Whitepaper] The Contact Center Guide to Managing Spikes in Call VolumeEvery call center manager faces the problem of unpredictable spikes in call volume. Sometimes the causes are understood – even anticipated, however in many cases these peak periods come as a shock to the system. For example, a marketing event promoting a product sale would be an easy indicator of an influx in calls, whereas an unexpected power outage or sudden bout of the flu in the call center isn’t something you can readily plan for. Or is it?

What happens when call volume gets out of control? What strategy do you have in place to ensure that the customer experience doesn’t suffer?

This guide will tackle those questions head on!  Continue reading →

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