Call Drivers

We all do it probably more than we would like and that is call a contact centre, how do we know when it is our turn to call, I say this as I have worked in a few centres and the call arrival patterns are pretty standard, so let’s say we take 100,000 calls a day, and I have worked for a company who handled more, let’s say 80% of these are one time calls, how do these 80,000 people know when to call to satisfy my call arrival pattern.

I know there is certain factors which drive calls into the centre like the opening times, lunch time, closing times, breaks in major TV shows and many other things which build the pattern but if I only take 1000 calls a day or even less how comes the calls follow the same pattern, yes it gets smoother the more volume you throw at the pattern but still the pattern is the same.

This question has created some interesting answers over the years but I still don’t feel like I have the insight into this human timing behaviour I would like to help me plan and maybe even prevent calls in the first place, or influence the pattern to help with my staffing. A full understanding of this could be of great value and could help me improve my personal wages by offering this insight to centres helping to improve efficiencies.

If you have done any work on this subject and have any information which could help me build this model please get in touch. I know this will be different for other industries but I have worked in three centres providing completely different services and levels of service to three different volumes but the patterns are still the same so any insight would be useful.