The Fundamental Steps of Call Center Forecasting
The efficiency of any call center depends on the optimum utilization of its staff and technological equipment.
This is possible when we have a clear idea of the quantum of workload that needs to be distributed amongst the staff.
The workload includes not just the products which are ongoing, but also the projects which are expected in the near future.
This assumptive calculation of the work for the coming year and its distribution amongst staff is called as Call Center forecasting.
This forecasting is not just a speculative guess.
It is derived scientifically with help of various calculations.
These days, one finds that there are many workforce management software systems which claim to do the forecast.
But before you trust the results by such software, do your own calculation once.
As the forecast is the foundation for your entire resource planning.
And a computer can never have the intuition and experience that you have.
We tell you briefly, how to arrive at accurate perform call center forecasting.
After you get hold of a pen, paper, a calculator and a calendar, follow the steps listed below: 1st Step: Obtain and analyze the past data Unless something drastic happens, the past is likely to continue as present, and present is likely to continue as future.
So the first step of forecasting is to see how the past performance of your call center was.
This data needs to basically tell you how many calls were responded by the center on a daily basis.
The statistics from your Automatic Call Distributor system will tell you these figures.
If you note any aberrations, like the volume at the customer care call center dipped by 40% for the last 2 days in the month, then you should find the reason for this aberration.
Suppose the reason is that those 2 days were allocated for the soft-skill training of the inbound call center agents, then jot down this reason on the sheet.
Now ask yourself if this was a one-time aberration, or is it likely to recur.
As training will be recurring, usually once in 3 months, then we must adjust call volume accordingly.
And suppose if it was just one-time aberration, then you must assume the volume to be like other days.
Ideally you should have data of up to past two years to analyse with maximum accuracy.
2nd Step: Estimate the monthly call volume With statistics for the past two years, you can predict the coming year as well.
There are a couple of different approaches like the Point Estimate, Averaging Approaches, Time Series etc.
that will help you in making these predictions.
3rd Step: Plan every day, each hour Actually in a 24x7 call center environment, each minute and each second counts.
But it can be maddening to forecast in such detail.
So let's first get the forecast for our days.
If there are any trends like on weekends the volume doubles, or on Mondays the volume dips, then fill the data keeping these trends in mind.
And after plotting for all days, get down to each hour.
Observe trends that which hours show a peak in volume, and which ones show a decline.
The forecasting helps offshore call centers to become seamlessly scalable and emerge as the preferred outsourcing vendor for call center services of global clients.
This is possible when we have a clear idea of the quantum of workload that needs to be distributed amongst the staff.
The workload includes not just the products which are ongoing, but also the projects which are expected in the near future.
This assumptive calculation of the work for the coming year and its distribution amongst staff is called as Call Center forecasting.
This forecasting is not just a speculative guess.
It is derived scientifically with help of various calculations.
These days, one finds that there are many workforce management software systems which claim to do the forecast.
But before you trust the results by such software, do your own calculation once.
As the forecast is the foundation for your entire resource planning.
And a computer can never have the intuition and experience that you have.
We tell you briefly, how to arrive at accurate perform call center forecasting.
After you get hold of a pen, paper, a calculator and a calendar, follow the steps listed below: 1st Step: Obtain and analyze the past data Unless something drastic happens, the past is likely to continue as present, and present is likely to continue as future.
So the first step of forecasting is to see how the past performance of your call center was.
This data needs to basically tell you how many calls were responded by the center on a daily basis.
The statistics from your Automatic Call Distributor system will tell you these figures.
If you note any aberrations, like the volume at the customer care call center dipped by 40% for the last 2 days in the month, then you should find the reason for this aberration.
Suppose the reason is that those 2 days were allocated for the soft-skill training of the inbound call center agents, then jot down this reason on the sheet.
Now ask yourself if this was a one-time aberration, or is it likely to recur.
As training will be recurring, usually once in 3 months, then we must adjust call volume accordingly.
And suppose if it was just one-time aberration, then you must assume the volume to be like other days.
Ideally you should have data of up to past two years to analyse with maximum accuracy.
2nd Step: Estimate the monthly call volume With statistics for the past two years, you can predict the coming year as well.
There are a couple of different approaches like the Point Estimate, Averaging Approaches, Time Series etc.
that will help you in making these predictions.
3rd Step: Plan every day, each hour Actually in a 24x7 call center environment, each minute and each second counts.
But it can be maddening to forecast in such detail.
So let's first get the forecast for our days.
If there are any trends like on weekends the volume doubles, or on Mondays the volume dips, then fill the data keeping these trends in mind.
And after plotting for all days, get down to each hour.
Observe trends that which hours show a peak in volume, and which ones show a decline.
The forecasting helps offshore call centers to become seamlessly scalable and emerge as the preferred outsourcing vendor for call center services of global clients.
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