How to manage high call volumes
One of the main problems call centres face is the saturation of phone lines i.e. High call volumes, especially during peak hours. Waiting times to speak to an agent can be very long, which can be frustrating for customers and has a negative impact on the NPS. When customers finally get on the call, they are impatient and sometimes angry. If the wait is too long, they even abandon the call.
This is a really negative situation because it can lead to a loss of potential customers and a decrease in the satisfaction of existing customers. That’s why speed and consistency are very important. The global benchmark for average speed of response in a call center is 28 seconds and the average call duration is 4 minutes. In order to obtain this speed and thus to reduce the saturation of the lines we suggest three steps to follow.
- Increase productivity
The first solution is to increase the productivity of the call center. In order to reduce line saturation it is important to be able to handle more calls, to do this you need to focus on the average time of the calls and make them shorter. Xdroid has several analysis tools to achieve these goals.
First, you can track productivity by identifying acoustic measures such as silence, crosstalk and music i.e. periods of unproductivity. This is the time the customer spent waiting while on call with the agent. With these factors you will be able to identify the least productive calls and analyze the reasons for unproductivity.
Another element to increase the productivity of the call center is the FCR (first call resolution). With Xdroid you can identify calls with issues that are not resolved on the first call. These calls can be categorised and used to identify the problems that need a deeper more effective solution. This way you can resolve issues faster next time and avoid repeat calls. If customers don’t have to call back to solve their problem, there will be fewer calls and therefore less phone saturation.
- Understand customer needs
It is important to ensure that increasing productivity and decreasing call time does not impact the quality of customer service. You must understand your customers, and identify their needs more easily to better prepare your agents for the customer calls. This will further help reduce the average call handle time.
To achieve a better understanding of the customer’s needs you need to be able to analyze what is actually happening during the call. Xdroid allows you to analyze calls on what is actually happening during the call, you can identify keywords and particular situations to learn more about the needs of customers.
A speech analytics tool like Xdroid’s VoiceAnalytics can also help you analyze the emotions and feelings of customers to better understand them, and you will be able to identify negative experiences. With Xdroid you can as well establish the NPS of each call, which corresponds to the customer’s satisfaction and loyalty and the risk of churn. It will then be possible to link the NPS to the purpose of the call to better understand how to satisfy the customer.
- Anticipate Customer Needs
Another possible and more quantifiable solution is to predict the number of calls in order to avoid call saturation. Indeed, it is important to be able to adjust the number of agents to ensure that there are enough staff to meet the demand of high call volumes, especially during peak hours.
To do this, you can analyze historical trends and forecast call peaks in order to plan ahead and adjust staffing levels. VoiceAnalytics can support your agents and managers with valuable insights and help establish an efficient system for resource management.
Xdroid’s real-time solution AgentAssist can also facilitate this kind of management remotely with features like real-time recommendations and in-system chats where managers can supervise the calls live and step in to guide the agents as and when they need. Supervisors can access a detailed overview of how the agents across different groups and departments are performing, whether they are meeting all of their KPIs, and complying to regulatory requirements like GDPR or PCI.
As mentioned earlier, they can get reports of which agent/department has the best or worst AHT, high or low FCR, compare different calls and agents, and even study the problematic calls individually to identify the issues that contribute to call saturation. Tracking agent performance this way gives managers and supervisors an insight into which agents perform well under pressure and which agents need to work on becoming more efficient. Specialised training programmes can be built around these insights to target the areas that need improvement. Management can thus make data-driven decisions to allocate resources and shift agents to put their best foot forward for the customers.
Conclusion: Tackle High call volumes with ease
There are several measures call centers can take to avoid call saturation and consequently maintain acceptable wait times for customers and guarantee a high quality of service. Speech analytics tools such
