FREE online courses on Small Call Center Management - Develop a Systematic Planning Process

 

Some respond to the subject of resource planning with the rationale that forecasting, staffing and scheduling won't do a lot of good because there is only a limited number of staff anyway. Truth is, the fact that you're in a more volatile environment and that you have limited resources to work with is all the more reason to do some concerted planning.

 

Small call centers generally have fewer scheduling alternatives and are therefore prime candidates for the "envelope strategy,". To use this approach, first determine the base staff required to handle the inbound call load, down to the half hour level. Next, add in necessary breaks, absenteeism, etc., so you know the rostered staff required. Then, find the difference between rostered staff required and the staff you actually have; that is the envelope available for more flexible activities, such as non-phone work, training and special projects.

 

This approach simply recognizes that flexible activities should happen in the valleys of the inbound call load pattern. For example, training should happen Wednesday afternoon versus Monday morning (assuming Monday has a heavier call load). And correspondence or e-mail should happen during the late afternoon, not during the busier mid-morning period.

 

You are probably making these adjustments anyway, even if you don't have a well-developed planning process in place. But for the envelope strategy to be most effective, you'll need to forecast and manage non-phone activities in addition to the inbound calls. As with inbound calls, these activities often occur in predictable patterns, and usually have a strong correlation to other forecasts, such as the inbound call load, units of sales or number of customers. Investigate the tracking capabilities in your ACD, forecasting/staffing software and computer database. As a last resort, track these activities manually, as they occur.