The Contact Center Guide to

Managing Spikes in Call Volume

 The Contact Center Guide to Managing Spikes in Call Volume Page 2

Introduction
Every 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!

The Role of the Voice Channel

When it comes to customer service, there will always be a role for a live conversation with an agent.
Perhaps call volume has gone down over the years
due to the availability of multi-channel tools and
self-service, however this just means that the live
agent transactions will be more complicated and
likely to involve an upset customer. As well, some
customers may simply prefer to deal with a live
agent and skip self-service tools altogether. For
example, a study by Wells Fargo found that 60% of
banking transactions are made by customers who
still prefer to do business with a teller.

According to Parature, voice continues to take the

lead amongst all channels, but it’s not the most
pleasant experience. The biggest problem with
the voice channel is long hold-times. Typically this
is the result of volume spikes or contact centers
simply being understaffed. Unfortunately, the
effect is negative nonetheless – 60% of customers
will abandon a call after just one minute of waiting
on hold.
The consensus is the voice channel still plays
a critical role, but the experience needs to be
worked on.

Tracking Your Call Volume Data

Before we dive into this guide, we encourage you to take some time to analyze your data. Look at
the previous two months and label the spikes as planned or unplanned. Note any patterns that
are present within both sets of data. For instance, many
organizations tend to have spikes on Mondays after being
closed on Sunday. Most contact centers would take this data
and use it for workforce optimization – in other words, staffing
up for times when they know spikes will occur. The important
thing to note with tracking is that it’s an ongoing process.
Changes in the marketplace, or within your own organizations,
may dictate alterations in the trends and this is something you
have to feel out as it happens.

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How Spikes are Managed Today

When a call center experiences peaks in call volume, hold-times inevitably go up and abandon
rates become an issue. This is the reality for call centers, and it can have a significant impact on the
bottom line. Faced with this problem, many call centers will aim to fix it one of two ways:
1. Staff up for peak periods, or;
2. Find a way to eliminate hold-time.
The first option is a great fix to the problem of spikes, but leaves your call center with excess agent
capacity at other times when call volume is reduced, resulting in inefficiencies.
The second option can be achieved through the use of call-back technology. Call-backs help
“smooth-out” spikes in call volume by deferring calls (in a customer-friendly manner) to a time
when there’s additional agent availability. In a sense, call-backs let you do a better job matching the
demand with the supply of agent time. This results in more efficient use of resources.
Watch this video to learn how Bright Horizons uses call-back technology to smooth out spikes:

Expectations are on the Rise

The relationship you have with your
customers is the key to future success. Are
you listening to them and effectively meeting
their needs? According to a Parature report,
customer expectations are on the rise. 68%
of customers have stopped doing business
with a brand due to a poor customer service
experience (for example, long hold times)
and 56% have higher expectations for
customer service now then they had a year
ago.

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To keep consumers happy, customer expectations can either be met (what the customer would
find acceptable) or exceeded (what most customers really want). However from the customer’s
perspective, there is a world of difference between the two. Here’s how Richard Branson put it:

How Call-Backs Provide Better Control (Across all Channels)

It can be very difficult for call center agents to do their jobs successfully during peak seasons. More
than anyone, it’s the front-line agents that feel the consequences of long hold-times. After all, it’s
agents who continually experience the dissatisfaction of customers, irate at being on hold and
whose expectations have not been met. So what’s the simple solution for happier agents? Give them
happier customers, of course.

Ultimately, the idea is to put the customer in charge of their own destiny by giving them choice.
Offering options to callers does something amazing for the customer experience: it empowers
callers to choose how they want to resolve their issues. If they’re stuck on hold and choose a call-
back option (i.e. a virtual hold) instead of physically waiting, you’ve allowed them to choose how they
want to spend their time.

Want to provide options on more than one channel? Easy – call centers can use call-backs as an
escalation plan to take conversations from social media, mobile, or chat, into the voice channel, all
while preserving the context of that conversation.

Bottom line: call-backs give contact centers and customers CONTROL!

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 The Contact Center Guide to Managing Spikes in Call Volume Page 5

The ROI of Call-Backs for Smoothing Out Call Spikes

Beyond the “hard” ROI of improved efficiency in the call center, one should not discount the value
of the increased customer satisfaction that results when you remove the aggravation of hold time.
(If you need a reminder of how much callers dislike waiting on hold, just take a moment to scan the
tweets at onholdwith.com.)

Let’s see how call-backs can redistribute call traffic throughout the day to smooth out spikes. This is
a very powerful effect, but tricky to illustrate. We can’t tell the story by tracking a single metric, like
abandon rate. Instead, we have to build a scenario and watch how changing call volume throughout
the day impacts service levels and agent efficiency.

Let’s get started!

The Trouble with Spikes

When agents can’t keep up with calls, the Average Speed to Answer (ASA) grows. That drives up the
abandonment rate, as callers get tired of waiting on hold. Long wait times also lead to frustrated
customers who then take out their anger on agents, raising average handle time and lowering agent
morale. If you have a deficit in agent capacity during one period, but a surplus during another, you
can use call-backs to defer calls until a later time. The basic effect is “smoothing out” of the call
traffic.

Setting Up the Example

The concept shown above makes sense intuitively, but in order to get to quantitative answers, we
need to bring in Erlang calculations.

Let’s turn to the example company, creatively named “ExampleCo”:

• 28 agents

• 500,000 calls per year

• AHT is 5 minutes

• Target service level is 80/20 (i.e. 80% of calls should be answered in 20 seconds)

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If call traffic were perfectly smooth, there would be 250 calls coming in per hour and agents would
be able to provide timely service. But ExampleCo has a surge of calls in the middle of the day and
then a lull in the afternoon hours as you can see below. (Note that the graph is showing ½ hour
timeslots so the average rate of calls is 125 rather than 250.)

During those lunchtime hours, ExampleCo is not able to meet its service level. In fact, ASA gets
embarrassingly long. The company’s management wants the problem solved in a cost-effective way.
One option being considered is hiring more agents (at considerable cost). Let’s look at using call-
backs as an alternative solution and use the cost differential as our basis for ROI.

ExampleCo’s Spikes in Call Volume Without a Call-Back Solution

Scheduled Call-Backs

It’s important at this point to make the distinction between regular (or “ASAP”) call-backs and
scheduled call-backs. Traditionally, with call-backs, the customer’s place in line is held and they
are called when their turn arrives. Another name for this is “virtual queuing” because the caller is
waiting in the queue via a virtual place holder. This approach yields the advantages of decreased
abandonment, shorter handle times and lower telco costs, but it does not get us the traffic reshaping
advantage we want. That’s because just replacing queue time with virtual queue time doesn’t change
the burden on the call center. To do that you need scheduled call-backs, whereby customers are
offered carefully selected time slots in the future for their call-back.

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 The Contact Center Guide to Managing Spikes in Call Volume Page 7

The Scheduling Interaction

Asking a caller to select a time slot at the time of their original call does add a small burden to the
process. But fortunately, customers still regard this option favourably because they perceive that the
call center is catering to their needs. It’s really a win-win situation.

If the interaction begins on the phone, the time slot selection can be done through an IVR-style
menu. If the interaction begins on the web or mobile app, then the timeslot selection process can be
even simpler, as shown in the Fonolo Web Rescue deployment below.

How to Schedule Fonolo Call-Backs on the Web

Web Rescue is unique in that it is a pre-built component with all the UI ready to go. Other call-back
solutions on the market require building the interface with APIs. Fonolo also offers a mobile call-
back solution, Mobile Rescue, which offers similar functionality for embedding in mobile apps.

Taming the Peak with Call-Backs

For our call-back strategy, let’s start with something simple: Callers between 10:00 AM and 1:00
PM will hear an offer for a call-back, with suggested time slots between 2:00 PM and 4:30 PM. We’ll
assume a 20% take-up rate and distribute those deferred calls evenly into the afternoon slots.

The Impact of Scheduled Call-Backs on the Contact Center

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 The Contact Center Guide to Managing Spikes in Call Volume Page 8

Already one can see that there are several powerful variables that you can control to reshape the
call traffic to your needs:

1. When the call-backs are offered.

2. What time slots are proposed to callers.

3. What the Take-up Rate is. (I.e. The percentage of callers who will opt for a call-back. This
can be controlled by changing when and how often the offer message is played to callers
who are in-queue.)

When shopping for a call-back solution, make sure you have easy control of these variables!

Let’s see what the results are with the reshaped traffic.

How Call-Backs Are Used to Smooth Out Call Volume

A great improvement! The service level is now met for 100% of the day and the ASA, which was
peaking at 560 seconds (~9 minutes), now never goes above 17 seconds.

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 The Contact Center Guide to Managing Spikes in Call Volume Page 9

Agent Equivalency

How many additional agents would it take to get a similar improvement? That’s really the
question we need to answer in determining a ROI. Through some trial and error, we find that 32
agents (4 more than before) are needed to meet the demand. With that staffing level, the service
level just barely dips below our 80/20 target at noon.
Calls

With 32 agents instead

of 28 (dashed line) ASA
ASA

stays below 21 sec.

Service level almost

Svc Level

always above target.

(77% at worst time slot.)

Call Traffic with Added Agents

ROI Through Cost Differential

Let’s assume the comprehensive costs of a full-time agent at this call center is $50k. Our 4 new
agents would then cost $200k per year. We’re going to ignore for now training and on-boarding
costs. How does this compare with the cost of call-backs?

In the scenario above, 180 calls were deferred between 10 and 1pm. Let’s assume that call-backs are
not offered at other times during the day, and that this day is representative of the year. That means
45,000 call-backs per year. If the costs is less than $4 per call-back, the total cost is less than hiring
agents. At $1 per call-back, the cost differential is $200k minus $45k, or a 77% savings!

Total savings from call redistribution:

$155,000

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 The Contact Center Guide to Managing Spikes in Call Volume Page 10

Whether you look for a built-in or a third party solution like Fonolo, here are some questions
you should ask before choosing a call-back solution:

Checklist: Choosing a Call-Back Solution

What’s the pricing model?

TIP: Premise-based solutions require up-front capital, while
cloud-based solutions typically don’t require up-front fees or
charge for professional services.

How does price scale with call volume?

TIP: SaaS solutions allow flexibility. If you purchase a premise-
based solution and then find that your projections are off, it
can be difficult to adjust.

How easy is it to adjust parameters like the wording or

timing of the call-back offer message?
TIP: Ask if you have access to a management interface so that
changes can easily be made.

What happens when there are already more calls queued

up than can be handled before end-of-day?
TIP: Handling these kinds of sticky situations is really critical,
ensure you’ve thought about every possible outcome.

How hard is it to add web & mobile functionality?

TIP: You should be able to accomplish this without involving IT
or calling in a consultant.

How thorough is the reporting and can it be integrated

with your existing reporting tools?
TIP: Think about your KPIs and what success metrics are im-
portant to you.

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 The Contact Center Guide to Managing Spikes in Call Volume Page 11

Conclusion
Whether you regularly experience peak periods, or occasionally have spikes in volume, call-backs
can defer traffic to more manageable times. “Smoothing out” peak periods makes more efficient use
of agents, improving call center productivity and reducing the need to hire additional resources. It
also reduces the number of repeat callers, further reducing spikes.

Call-backs are an insurance policy for your call center: When call volume spikes, you can rest easy
knowing that you can handle the traffic.

Call-Backs Smooth Out Spikes in Call Volume

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Fonolo: Call-Back Solutions for the Call Center

With Fonolo, your customers will never wait on hold again, regardless of where the conversation
begins – web, mobile or inbound call. Our cloud-based technology easily hooks into your existing call
center infrastructure, with minimal impact to your business processes.

Join Us for a LIVE Demo

Learn how Fonolo can help you lower
abandon rates, reduce costs and improve
the customer experience.

REGISTER NOW!

Why Call-Backs?
• Happier Customers
75%
• Lower Telco Costs say the option for a
call-back is “highly
appealing”.
• Less Abandonment

• Shorter Handle Times 32%

average reduction
in abandon rate
• Smoother Call Volume with call-backs.

Mark Edelman, VP Digital Member Services, Stanford Federal Credit Union

“With Fonolo’s call-back solution we saw a reduction in our
abandon rate, an increase in member satisfaction and an
upsurge in agent morale!”

Losing customers to hold time? Learn more at fonolo.com