One of the biggest myths that we should dispel during this course concerns the u

Question

One of the biggest myths that we should dispel during this course concerns the use of "Company Call Centers", and how well their representatives provide some measure of customer service. The specific myth goes something like this - you call a customer service number and are put on hold with a message stating something to the effect - "Due to the high-call volume of calls, your wait time could be several minutes." We know from your readings most companies could predict (i.e., forecast) their daily call volumes within very small error estimates using some of the statistical techniques discussed in these two chapters. This seems to suggest that most managers running call centers would prefer to run their operations overcapacity (i.e., the amount of anticipated calls exceeds staffing levels). An educated guess is that most callers will get so frustrated that they will hang up and try to figure out a solution to their problem using the organizations website, or call again at a later date and time slot. Many companies during this 'wait time' (via a recorded message) provide an "Option" to the caller, and direct clients to visit their website and review their "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQ), or to leave their name and phone number for a call back from the company call center.

Of course, in fairness to companies that run Call Centers, answering phone calls is an expensive proposition. Most estimates range from $5.00-$10.00 to handle each call once all costs are factored in. This can eliminate part of a firm's profit margin pretty quickly; however, customer satisfaction should one of the primary goals at the end of each call. In many cases, the end of your call states a question - "Did your call center representative answer your question to your satisfaction?"

The evolution of technology and the impact that this will ultimately have (or has had) on capacity planning is of particular interest. Instead of building new facilities around the country, many companies have moved their business operations to "24/7 Call Centers" with limited facilities that distribute/ship products, and limited facilities that service these same products.

The question before us today is - "What are the ultimate implications for demand forecasting and capacity planning in relation to the above scenario/discussion? What changes have you seen or do you foresee in the future for technology advances in customer services? "

Explanation / Answer

Demand forecasting and capacity planning can be vary widely affected as per variable change in customer expectancy. All of the specific approaches are totally dependent on availability of different scenarios where using correct approach for implementation of current forecasting strategy is necessary to maintain better revenue from the same market segment.
At current state different tools and softwares are available to forecast specific requirement of demand as well as capacity requirement on the basis of the overall load being generated at the call center and the service provision. The main challenge in mitigating this type of providing a quality forecasting to the organisation is essential which could only be occurred why implementation of a strong monitoring as well as analysis program in the organisation structure.

As call centers are one of the most busiest workplaces with intense working environment which puts load on the organisations financially as well as also increases the impact of total available customer response service, maintaining multiple lines over the specific Call center is not possible due to the extreme operational cost involved in this type of business environment.
Future of technology is not depending on the IVRS technology which is directly focusing on creating an intuitive generalized platform for you reproducing need of a customer care individual as well as improving the overall customer care experience by providing instant ramification of common problems. All of these approaches are essential for organisations to keep the operational cost low and improve the overall profit by reducing the impact of such a specific exercise investment in maintaining better customer care relation.

Automation can also be one of the most important part in customer service provision reducing availability of requirement of such a specific customer care based operating structure improving the availability of opportunities for an organisation for maintaining better customer care relationship and improving the availability of operational capabilities of company call center in a positive manner.

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