![Are You Prepared for Unpredicted Spikes in Call Volume [Webinar]](https://fonolo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Are-You-Prepared-for-Unpredicted-Spikes-in-Call-Volume-Webinar-450.jpg "Are You Prepared for Unpredicted Spikes in Call Volume [Webinar]")
After the grounding of all Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft, calls to Air Canada’s customer service prompted a recording that said call volume had “temporarily exceeded the company’s capacity to answer or even place callers on hold.” While this was an extreme event, every call center faces the same problem at one time or another: Unpredictable spikes in call volume. These causes can be understood, even anticipated. However, as in the case of Air Canada, these peak periods can also come as a shock to the system.
While today’s tech-savvy consumers are using more non-voice channels to connect with businesses, the act of picking up the phone to quickly and verbally resolve an issue (complex or otherwise) isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
The problem is that when calls spike, hold times spike, too. 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. A quick glance at onholdwith.com confirms how much hold times infuriate consumers. 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.
![How to Successfully Handle Call Volume During Peak Times [Webinar]](https://fonolo.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/How-to-Successfully-Handle-Call-Volume-During-Peak-Times-Webinar.jpg "How to Successfully Handle Call Volume During Peak Times [Webinar]")
The 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 
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.
Monday: 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.
Call 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.
One 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.
