The dreaded camel hump 🐫
***Disclaimer for follow up questions… I cannot share in specific info about my current or previous employers ****
Hello workforce world! We all
have experienced or know about that dreaded call center camel hump lol… we still live in a world where the majority
of the corporate world works and would like to work the standard wish list 9am-5pm
Monday to Friday shifts J.. however, as businesses evolve as well as technology ... your
hours of operations are expanding and businesses need to be more flexible to
meet their customer needs across multiple age generations like the baby
boomers/generation X and Millennials.
I have worked in a few call
centers and the arrival patterns of voices calls tend to be fairly static or
typical and this is what causes that dreaded camel hump ...were you have to
staff up your mornings heavily in order to meet that big morning spike in
volume ... however too cover your ever expanding operating hours... you have to
ensure a balance in your workforce to meet that same spike in call volume that
occurs at night. Also, we all tend to like a continuous shift... we run into
that “Dreaded camel hump problem” were you have a huge overlap is staffing and your early
afternoon to late afternoon is so overstaffed and you are burning money??!!! Well
what can you do about it????
Below are some good suggestions:
1. Split shifts
2. Voluntary early leave (VEL)
3. Workforce Optimization Software Suite
4. Alternative platforms like Social Media and Web Chat
5. Work from home agents ** 5G and easy to get jump ons **
Topics in detail
#1-
Split shifts
Split shifts are a great way to
reduce the overlap in a call center camel hump situation, however from my
experience they are not highly desired and have very low uptake. So most organizations...
like this idea... but are generally disappointed on how ineffective it is ...
when only a few agents tend to pick or want them.
#2
- Voluntary early leave (VEL) / Leave without pay (LWP)
VEL and LWP is a very effective
way to reduce costs and can be done by line of sight (queue monitoring) or a pricier
but very effective option is to buy or add on within your existing (WF)
software a (WFO) workforce optimization suite. A WFO suite is something
wonderful and works amazing if the quality of your data and arrivals patterns
is super accurate and updated consistently. If you do not have a budget for
this ... you can accomplish the same via excel but for both solutions. Keep in
mind “Garbage in and you will get garbage out” so updating your call arrival
data, weekly call distribution and all other metrics and variables is !!Super!!
important!
#3
- Workforce Optimization Software Suite! Pricey but they are very effective and
offer amazing interactive options that increase employee satisfaction and
engagement.
(WFO) suites offer many great
features like apps that your agents can use to apply automatically for early or
unpaid leave. These requests can either be manually approved by your intraday/real-time analysts and or rules you can customize that can be triggered automatically by the
software suite based on your ACD data like service levels and predicted
staffing surpluses or shortages. These suites can also offer targeted training
during those slow times when agents are not applying for early leave to keep
your occupancy high by reducing idle time.
Again, with this solution it’s also only as effective as the data that
feeds to it. It can be highly effective and reduce your needs for extra
workforce manpower. This solution only works well if its setup correctly and if
the data that feeds into it is super accurate and constantly re-trended.
#
3 (B) To expand on my earlier point
... you do not need an expensive WFO suit to optimize your call centre and
reduce costs... but I still highly recommend one. If you can’t afford it ...
you can accomplish the same so long as you constantly update call distribution
patters, Call arrival patterns, and all other workforce metrics. If your input data is solid... then you can
make excel sheets that can calculate the FTE Staffing you will need by interval
and you can predict where you can offer early leave in advance. The best
solution would be to create scheduled export files from your ACD (Automated
call distributor) and have that data feed into a excel sheet via SQL scripts
that can constantly update your weekly call distribution, Call arrival
patterns, Shrink, etc. and with simple FTE requirements formulas .. you can
calculate staffing needed per interval in excel and you can have your real-time
intraday analyst’s use that to offer things like early leave or overtime or
even a full shift off to reduce your staffing costs. Also if you do a morning
or evening reforecast consistently and update your input variables your
forecasting and FTE deltas will be more reliable and can be done accurately
same day.
*** This is very important “Garbage
data in and you get Garbage data out” !! trending should be consistent and done
every 6 to 8 weeks at minimum or even tighter during peak season or major
launches or email or bill cycles like 2-3 weeks and even daily. ****
Topic
#4 – (Social Media and Web Chat Platforms) for your young more tech savvy
millennial customer base
Social Media and Chat is a
great way and a new alternative to target your millennial customer base. My
experience shows that Social media is an evening heavy arrival pattern platform
and it is a great way to redirect you voice call volume. It requires less of a
workforce to handle these interactions .. as they can have a much longer or
wider answer threshold. In the social media world, they call this (TAR) time to
average response. You can set this to whatever you want... 10/15/30 minutes for
someone to respond to a post within your public and private social media
platforms like Facebook and Twitter and other emerging platforms. Social Media
is a stop and go interaction experience…your millennial customer base has a
narrow attention span J lol... they just want to send a message and are more than willing
to wait for a response ... so long as they accomplish the same results as
calling in. It also requires minimal effort on their end so they have more time
to watch game of thrones or catch Pokémon’s J.
Web chat tends to follow the
same arrivals patterns as voice calls but can gain you amazing efficiency if
your customer database and transaction systems can support multiples sessions. **
This is very important ** before you invest into a chat platform … be sure to
check that your legacy systems can handle multiple records searches and
transactions. Web chat is also a very friendly Millennial and Generation X
alternative that can dramatically reduce your call centre cost per
call/interaction.
Topic
#5 - Work from home agents.
This one is a great one
folks…while it may be very expensive to setup, technology is evolving
constantly ** Like 5G** and not only will it save you money on real-estate
space ... but most agents will already have their own WIFI connections and or
it can be provided for them as part of the role or at a discount or subsidy.
The reason why work from home options are so great! You can get jumps on easily
and engage your agents and offer overtime without the need for them to drive
1-2 hours just to get to the center to assist in a major spike or unforeseen
demand in volume. The uptake rate on work from home agents is HUGE and has
great potential to save you money over the long term (ROI) and can help kill
the camel hump problem ..very effectively.
