Managing the peaks and troughs of call volume can be a painful task as unexpected peaks can often throw inbound call centres into chaos. This can also lead to unsatisfied and often irate customers who experience “longer than expected” wait times. On the flip-side, troughs equal under-utilised staff, reduction in efficiency, productivity and negatively impact the bottom line.

To handle these types of events, call centre supervisors and managers implement a technique often referred to as “name and number”. This technique simply means that a supervisor is continually watching the call volumes, and if they start to peak, will tell the agents to take only the name and number of calling customers so they can be called back later. This allows the call centre to take many more calls in a short period of time, with the customers’ expectation of a call back. When the supervisor is happy the peak is over, they instruct the agents to start calling back the customers that they have recorded details for.

This is a simple method and works quite well, however it is very time consuming for the supervisor. It can also lead to customers (and potential sales) not being called back as the agents are manually processing the data and have to manage the callbacks themselves.

Clever technology can ease both the supervisor’s tasks and the agents manual processing – without missing a single call back. With the right technology it just takes a few simple steps. Smart call technology features allow the supervisor to set thresholds based on wait times and/or number of calls in queue. These settings are monitored by the system with agent screens automatically changed when there are high call volumes to allow the capture of the customer contact details. When an agent sees the customer contact capture screens they know to act to gather details and close the calls as quickly as possible.

When the system monitors incoming call volume below the pre-determined trigger point, it starts calling customers back by automatically dialling them using an automated dialler. By automating the process supervisors and agents can concentrate on the call, not managing a call back list that could be as varied as scribbles on paper or entries in a word document.

While this effectively creates a series of outbound calls, which incur call costs, these are offset by the larger potential sales base. Advanced functionality such as smart call technology and diallers are available instantly in hosted or pay-as-you-use solutions so there are zero worries about upfront investments and implementation delays - in fact you can turn it on as a trial for your next campaign and turn it off again if it doesn’t deliver! 

By The IPscape Tech Team

The technical boys at IPscape are Darren Younger and David O'Leary. The boys run the IPscape technical group including managing the development, operations and telecommunication teams.