Surface Ripples

“We’re Experiencing High Call Volumes”

How many times have we been faced with this message or similar from a service provider saying that they are unable to respond promptly to our query?

As we move further along the digital path, service and product providers are increasingly moving toward digital platforms and artificial intelligence (AI) to cope with customer enquiries.  In some cases, they’re also using “live” call centres but the problem with the latter is that, at times, they don’t seem to be sufficiently manned.

This is understandable, perhaps, in an age where part-time employment is becoming more common and people work shifts.  To control costs, providers put a certain number of “agents” in their call centres at any one time to handle predicted volumes.

Things break down, however, when there are insufficient agents to handle high numbers of incoming calls.  One would expect this to be around the end of the month (when salaries are paid), the end of the quarter and the end of the year. 

There will be other times, of course, such as when there is a “service outage” in a provider’s online system.  These can’t be predicted and it will hardly surprise anyone to receive either a text warning or a recorded message that “All of our agents are busy…”.

The question is: are these providers investing sufficiently in “human” resources?  People still tend to trust other people more than online services to solve certain problems and we shouldn’t be surprised in turn if, when there’s an emergency in a highly-charged emotional situation, their reaction is to pick up the phone.

AI’s still in its infancy when it comes to answering queries and we’ve probably all experienced occasions when “the system” simply can’t answer our question (usually because it can’t understand it!).  The better systems in this case will transfer the customer to a “live” agent.  Others will simply give up.

The debate between “insufficient investment and people” and “cost-control” will continue to rage for the foreseeable future.  No doubt, providers do their best to cater for most situations but they still have a fair way to go.

As businesses, we can only monitor the rate, volume and timing of incoming request requests and calls and on a statistical basis do our best to predict when things will go wrong.  It would be even better if we could have a “reserve pool” of operators who could be summoned at a moment’s notice to help out in times of unexpectedly high volumes of calls.

I deliver change in markets ranging from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management.  I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. 

Labels: Crisis Management, Customer Care, Productivity

posted by William Martin @ 15:53