Hello all

I currently work within a large in bound call centre operation as a Sales Campaign Manager. The business has seen large growth over the past 2 years. In fact growth has been the biggest challenge for the business overall.

The call centre operates a 9-6 shift pattern Mon-Fri and Sat 9-1 for which agents work a alternative pattern of 9-5 or 10-6 with 2 committed Saturdays a month.

Whilst these shifts used to be suitable for the operation, as the business has grown we have found that the first hour is exceptionally busy and causes a bottle neck of calls throughout the day, this then eats into the lunch period which is naturally busier between 11.30-3.30 and so by the last hour of 5-6pm the SLA is well and truly depleted.

Whilst the business is looking overall at the possibility of extending the operational hours along with some route cause analysis work taking place, it would be interesting to hear peoples thoughts on more short term solutions that I could perhaps could consider or even better anyone else that works within this environemnt and has experienced similar shift pattern issues. Currently there is an endless supply of overtime on offer for our agents to cover the first hour to try and avoid this bottle neck of calls but this is burning the agents out and is not a cost effective solution long term,

Your suggestions/feedback is most welcome,

Many Thanks,

Have you considered why the first hour is so busy? perhaps if you extended the hours (open at 8 maybe) you can smooth the demand

Whilst you have 2 shift patterns it sounds as though you need to increase the number of agents who are scheduled to work the 9-5pm shift pattern.

For example if you take 70% of your calls between 9-5 but you have 50% of your staff working this shift then you will always be playing catchup.

Maybe I'm being too simplistic with this but I would look at the average percentage of calls coming in by hour and ensure that the shift plans match this.

Elaine

You say that you have grown and that you find 9am-10am very busy. Was it always busy compared to other periods of the day before you grew, just that before you had the staff to stop that hour's call spilling over to the rest of the day? Or maybe this peak in the morning is a new thing?

I would always start with the type of calls as well as the number. Is the various types of calls in the first hour different from those during the rest of the day? I only ask this because I saw a similar(ish) problem somewhere else where the centre had many more complaint or problem calls first thing. I suppose people go to bed thinking that they will call straight away in the morning to complain.

Obviously that may not apply in your place at all. But you say that you are doing some root cause analysis, I would accelerate that and get a small team of people listening to calls during the day for a few days and classifying the type and reason for the call. You will learn an amazing amount.

Good luck,

Rob