Call Arrival Patterns

Understanding call arrival patterns can make a massive difference when forecasting and scheduling to ensure you have enough resource available to handle your incoming work. In my years working In call centres I have only seen two different patterns across the day, but if you have any others please send me them and I will add them to this page.

Pattern 1

The most common pattern I have seen is this one, call volumes steadily rise throughout the morning and peak around 11am and then fall until between 2-4pm this I used to call the school pick up time, then we would see another rise peaking between 5-6 before falling again until close of play.

This pattern is quite easy to staff for although you will have some quiet time in the “School Run” period, which if used for team meetings, calling customers back who abandoned in the morning or any other back office work or shrinkage will utilise this efficiently.

Pattern 2

The other pattern I have seen starts the day slow but quickly builds to a 9-10 am peak, then volumes drop off throughout the day and after 6 pm are almost non-existent.

This pattern is a little harder to staff for as the number of advisors needed between 9-10 am can be considerably more than you need for the rest of the day. The only real solution is to try and reduce the AHT during the peak time by maybe offering the customer a call back later in the day rather than dealing with the query their and then.

There will be other arrival patterns but I have really only ever seen these two appear regularly, there will always be that unforeseen element which will affect the pattern.