'We are experiencing higher than average call volumes'.

I think that’s a lie, sorry. I can’t think of a single way of calculating an average that would make this statement true, unless maybe you’re closed for weekend hours and over-night but you are including them in your calculation? No? Then I’m calling BS and you’re calling me stupid. I’ve always cared passionately about my customers and your blatant disregard for yours is bordering on contempt and it’s bothering me. In fact, it winds me up so much I am writing this on a Saturday.

Then you have the audacity to follow it up with ‘Your call is important to us’ – really? Only this ridiculous call time tells me something very different. If your company is frequently ‘experiencing a higher volume of calls’ then I think you have to take a good look at your operations.

?Every organisation may have an unexpected rush on phone calls, but it’s rare – it’s not the norm. And yet I hear this ridiculous line over and over and over again. So let me tell you what you could be experiencing instead of this fictitious unexpected increase in call volumes:

Under-utilisation of your people. In plain language - are your call handlers available to take calls? This is not rocket science people. Put simply a team member’s utilisation rate is the percentage of their time that they are logged into the phone lines either already assisting customers or available to assist customers. I’m not going to tell you what the right level is as it will differ depending on the list of activities that person is expected to do within their job roles, but if all that person is employed to do is to handle customer service calls, then you’re probably targeting around 80% and they better be on the phone.

Don’t go all out and aim for 100% because unless you want to lose staff then you need to factor in some time for team building, training, company communication and the dreaded emails so pick a realistic target and make sure your team are aware of it and hitting it! If they aren’t logged in for the time they should be, then why not? Fix it.

Occupancy rates, once logged in, what percentage of time are they productive for? i.e. how much time are they engaged in customer call-related activity, (talking to customers, carrying out activity to resolve the issue, wrapping up and logging the call details). If you find your percentage is lower than say 80% and yet your call volumes are still high then what’s going on? Someone isn’t picking up the call!?If it’s 100% and yet you still have long queue times then either they aren’t efficiently handling the call (see below), or you’re understaffed. Either way, fix it.

Call handling times, how long does it take to resolve a customer query. You don’t want customers feeling like they aren’t listened to or that they are being rushed off the phone and you need to make sure the issue is actually resolved, (you can measure this with things like first time fix rates), but at the same time you don’t want long chats about what the customer got up to last weekend. So if you have higher than average call times, you are going to need to listen in and learn why.?Nine times out of ten, you’ll discover that it’s either lack of skills with the call handler and you need to address that through training or performance management, or its poor processes within your organisation. Either way, listening in is a valuable use of your time, because once you know the answer, fix it.

?Insufficient staffing levels. Clearly this is the first answer the team will give but it’s not necessarily the correct one, so don’t jump there straight away. Make sure it’s not one of the reasons above and if you are sure it’s not, then you have three choices:

1. Reduce your call volume – look at how the customer can self-serve, look at the common reasons for calling and make sure the customer can easily find the answer on your website or in your product instructions. Or maybe you can remove the reason for calling altogether. If it’s a problem you regularly have; missing parts, late deliveries, faulty goods – then go fix it.
2. Accept you are under-resourced and fix it. Start recruiting and recruit well.
3. Do nothing and accept you will have dropped calls, customer dissatisfaction and churn. Your call. If you think that the resulting loss of custom is less costly than staffing appropriately, by all means continue, and hope that the balance never tips. Either way, I won’t care, I’ll have left you ages ago….

But whatever you decide, stop lying to us and to yourselves.