Example of managing unexpected call volume

Last Updated : Apr 29, 2013 |

Contact centers can receive unexpected call volumes. For example, in the following scenarios:

  • Emergency calls

  • Holiday season promotions

  • Unexpected and temporary failure of a service

The challenge is to manage call volumes without losing the service levels for critical skills.

This example describes how the following features meet the needs of contact centers:

  • Dynamic Threshold Adjustment

  • Expert Agent Distribution-Least Occupied Agent (EAD-LOA) as an agent selection method

  • Greatest Need as the call selection method

  • Predicted Wait Time (PWT)

  • Service Level Supervisor (SLS)

  • Uniform Call Distribution-Least Occupied Agent (UCD-LOA) as an agent selection method

Background

A utility company receives calls with the following types of requests:

  • Billing-related queries

  • Disconnection requests

  • Emergency calls

  • New connection for domestic users or commercial users

  • Power outage complaints

The company has an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system to determine call routing and to receive customer information. The company also uses a call classification method to differentiate routine calls from urgent calls, for example, from a police department or a fire station.

All agents can handle routine calls that include the following services:

  • Requests to close residential connections

  • Current residential connection complaints

  • New residential connections

  • Residential power outage complaints

Skill assignment

The administrator creates four skills of the following type:

  • Commercial

  • Emergency

  • Payment

  • Routine

As the company requires all agents to handle emergency calls, the administrator assigns the Emergency skill to all agents.

The administrator groups agents into the following tiers with Tier 1 including the most experienced agents.

  • Tier 1 agents receive calls from critical skills, that is, Emergency and Payment. Tier 1 agents have the Commercial skill as a reserve skill.

  • Tier 2 agents excel at payment-related queries and collections. Therefore, Tier 2 agents have Payment as the primary skill with Emergency and Commercial as reserve skills.

  • Tier 3 agents excel at handling calls to the Commercial skill. Therefore, Tier 3 agents have Commercial as the primary skill with Emergency and Routine as reserve skills.

  • Tier 4 agents are new hires and receive calls to the Routine skill. The company is training Tier 4 agents for the Emergency skill if the call volume to the skill increases unexpectedly.

The following table shows the agent skill assignment.

Agent tiers

Emergency

Payment

Commercial

Routine

Tier 1

Primary

Primary

Reserve level 1 (R1)

—

Tier 2

Reserve level 1 (R1)

Primary

Reserve level 2 (R2)

—

Tier 3

Reserve level 2 (R2)

—

Primary

Reserve level 1 (R1)

Tier 4

Reserve level 2 (R2)

—

—

Primary

Tier 1 and Tier 2 agents do not receive calls to the Routine skill as the company wants the best agents to be available for calls to critical skills.

Overload thresholds

The administrator sets two levels of threshold for Emergency and Commercial skills.

The following table lists the reserve agent activation time for each skill.

Skills

Overload threshold in seconds

Service level target

Emergency

Level 1: 5

Level 2: 8

Not applicable

Payment

No thresholds

Not applicable

Commercial

Level 1: 20

Level 2: 30

85% in 20 seconds

Routine

Level 1: 40

85% in 40 seconds

Agent selection

The administrator uses EAD-LOA for the Commercial and Payment skills. Communication Manager routes calls to the agent with the highest skill level and the lowest percentage of time on ACD calls since agent login.

The administrator uses UCD-LOA for Emergency and Routine skills because all agents can handle calls to the skills. Communication Manager routes the call to the agent with the lowest percentage of time on ACD calls since agent login regardless of the skill level.

Call selection

The administrator selects greatest-need without Service Objective (SO) as the call handling preference to ensure that Communication Manager selects calls with the longest PWT.

The administrator uses Call Selection Override for the Emergency skill to ensure that the skill does not exceed the threshold limit.

When the Emergency skill status is in the overload threshold, Communication Manager delivers an Emergency skill call before calls to the primary skill of an agent. For example, a Tier 2 agent with Payment as the primary skill receives an emergency call before a payment-related call.

Automated agent staffing

The administrator uses SLS to activate reserve agents when the threshold levels for a skill exceed the administered limit.

The administrator selects Activate on Oldest Call Waiting to ensure that the contact center does not miss calls to the Emergency skill.

Summary

Call Selection Override ensures that agents receive emergency calls before calls to primary skills.

As calls to the Emergency skill are unpredictable, Expected Wait Time (EWT) calculations to activate reserve agents can be ineffective.

With Activate on Oldest Call Waiting, Communication Manager monitors the wait time of calls in the queue for the Emergency skill. If the wait time of the oldest call for the Emergency skill exceeds the overload thresholds levels, SLS activates reserve agents for the skill.

Dynamic Threshold Adjustment automatically adjusts the thresholds for the non-emergency skills to maintain service-level targets.