I work for a process as a team manager, my concern related to my process Is that our product faces some downtime issues during rains, also in this scenario, we get lot of calls from subscribers, increasing load on our existing staff.
We anyways are answering calls beyond projections for example we have being given projection of around 6000 calls per day, we end up answering close to 9000 to 10,000 calls in a day, also we have some excess staff beyond requirement which needs us to answer around 11000 calls in a day. Taking this background…

It has so happened that in last few weeks, our process management has gone to extreme ends to answer maximum calls which are as follows:

1) scheduling 6 day working for agents
2) calling few agents even on their one off day, making them work complete 7 days for that week and compensating the cancelled off in the forthcoming roster.
3) Calling team leads on off days, situations like a TL having her daughter’s birthday being called on her off day, another TL having root canal treatment in clinic called on off day, TL getting late by some time who was not keeping well calls and informs the respective team manager, and that team manager calls up his doctor to validate if really he had being to doctor, whereas that team leader is regular in his duties.
4) Absenteeism is on a rise, due to off days being reduced, also we have majority of our staff aged between 20 – 30 yrs age including more of undergrad students.
5) Agents are not granted leaves if sick or not keeping well.
6) Agents coming late and not adhering to shift login timings, at times some team managers have reprimanded agents on the shop floor in front of all other agents.
7) We also have an outbound team, which is made to login extra to handle inbound calls post their shift, again creating a de-motivating effect on agents, though being given Over Time.
8) Agents in both inbound and outbound team have started scoring fatal errors on calls.

On a business perspective it definitely benefits the process if maximum calls get answered, however I’m finding it difficult to put across my point to the management of my process as they are accustomed to this style of working. And they are okay with people attiring, obviously the COPQ is being overlooked, would need some suggestions how to deal with this situation.

Bhautik,

We suffered a similar issue recently whereby a certain period of the year had to sustain a higher than firecasted volume of calls for a 4 week period. We didnt see this coming, based on forecasted sales and historical call data, so from a recruitment point of view, we were stuck (recruiting and training new staff can take up to 4 weeks).

So, we implemented a few extra options with our IVR system that answered the more basic questions through a longer recording, then the custoemr abandons. Have you thought about any IVR Call avoidment scripts you could write to prevent the call from actually reaching the agent, yet still solving the issue? We have an Opening Hour option which is 80% successful, i.e. 80% of all customers that select this option, listen to the recorded script, then abandon, therefore allowing the agent to handle more complex, lengthy calls.

Scott

Scott,

I am curious. Did you ever figure out why you had a 4 week surge in call numbers?

Rob

Rob,

We put around 60% of it down to the weather interestingly enough. Awful weather prompted people to call in before making the trip to stores. Retail calls (general calls - 40% of our volume) increased, mainly in the Opening Hours area, therefore we could inplement "generic" options in the IVR that allowed us to manage the simple callers without actually impacting on AHT.

The remaining 40% down to change in sales patterns that marketing had not informed us of.

Regards

Scott