To ensure the right number of staff are available at any given time to deliver exceptional customer service, call centers must fully understand how much "traffic" they expect to handle.
Enter call center traffic forecasting, an art form that helps operations stay on top of dynamic demand levels, so they can best plan for traffic spikes and dips.
Most workforce optimization (WFO) and workforce management (WFM) systems come with built-in forecasting capabilities to predict how traffic volumes could change in a given period.
Yet, many contact centers – typically with fewer than 30 seats – still rely on manual methods.
How do WFO/WFM Tools Forecast Call Centre Traffic?
WFO/WFM tools leverage built-in algorithms to arrive at highly accurate forecasts. These include:
- Averaging Algorithms – These analyze call center traffic over several years to predict the possible volume for a specific day of the week, month, or date.
- Point Estimate Models – These assess call volumes for special events – including holidays, Black Friday, and marketing campaigns - to better predict traffic when these events reoccur.
- Time Series Models – These evaluate changes in traffic volume over various quarters/fiscal years to predict contact volumes for a day, factoring in time-based change.
Typically, WFO/WFM tools use a combination of all of these models to process the massive volumes of call records they store and generate predictions.
These solutions will also contain many forecasting models and algorithms – possibly hundreds - which contact centers can test to find the most accurate for their unique environment.
With these tools, planners can automate much of the forecasting process. Yet, they can still make tweaks based on their planning experience.
Moreover, WFM systems reforecast at regular intervals to ensure maximum accuracy.
How Can Contact Centers Forecast Manually?
Manual forecasting for a contact center of over 30 agents is arduous, as operations typically use spreadsheets that grow and spiral out of control.
Moreover, it is tricky to achieve high forecasting accuracy, balancing contact volume data to spot trend and seasonality – with special considerations for "what if" scenarios.
Yet, it is possible. First, businesses must consider contact volumes from the past three to five years to estimate an annual demand for the year ahead - giving the most recent years more precedence.
Then, they split this demand into months, accounting for traditional seasonality.
From there, such demand is broken down into weeks, days, and hours, closely considering trends such as: which day do we typically get the most contacts? And what does our call arrival pattern across the typical day look like?
Yet, this is only the bare bones of a manual forecasting technique known as "triple exponential smoothing," which contact centers have used for decades.
Why You Need to Forecast Call Centre Traffic
Traffic volumes for inbound call centers vary hugely based on market forces.
