September 9 –
We’re all familiar with how a holiday can affect volumes and possibly handle times… and not just on the holiday itself but sometimes for the entire week. You may have also noticed that the holiday aftermath varies depending on the day of week the holiday falls on, such as July 4th falling on a Tuesday instead of a Friday.
With this in mind, keeping track of all these variables can help with identifying holiday trends. Using volume and handle time data or historical patterns from past holidays can be beneficial for creating a more realistic forecast for future holidays. When forecasting for Memorial Day, barring major changes in your business, consider using data or patterns from last year or the past three Memorial Days if you have that much history. More data will typically help even out sharp peaks or dips in volume or handle time.
Now consider other events that affect volume or handle time such as marketing/advertising campaigns, a new post contact process for agents, planned outages, or a large class of incoming agents. All of these can lead to staffing issues. However, keeping track of these trends (just as you would for holidays) can greatly help with forecasting and staffing for future date ranges with similar events.
For example, if you have noticed that certain advertising campaigns spike your volume for a couple of hours and you know that you have one of those coming up in a couple of weeks, consider using the actual data or patterns from the past campaign when forecasting for the future campaign.
Identifying where the spike is expected often helps to plan for it and avoid that time frame for out-of-queue activities such as meetings, training, or breaks. When forecasting, the temptation to use the same patterns or same type of data is strong… but putting in a little extra time to find out what might be going on during that date range can go a long way toward preventing future staffing woes.
This tip is provided Lora Previtera of CommunityWFM. She can be reached at previtera@communitywfm.com. Contact Lora to learn more about modern forecasting solutions.
CommunityWFM provides a modern and automated approach to contact center workforce management technology. After spending over a decade combining forecasting, scheduling, intraday management, adherence monitoring, mobile capabilities, and more into a single application, the CommunityWFM solution is now the largest standalone WFM solution on the market today. With two product versions, Enterprise and Essentials, CommunityWFM is delivered to customers and partners with a passion for service and world-class deployment and onboarding methodologies. Leading companies spanning many different geographies and industries rely on CommunityWFM every day as the backbone of their contact center operations. For more information, visit our website at www.communitywfm.com.