How to reduce contact centre demand without hiring more agents

When contact centre demand starts to rise, the first thought is often to hire more people.

It makes sense. More customers are getting in touch, queues are building and the team is under pressure. Extra agents may well be part of the answer.

But before adding headcount, it’s worth looking at what’s driving the demand. Sometimes customers are getting in touch because a message isn’t clear, a process isn’t working properly or they’ve already tried more than once to get the same issue sorted.

Hiring more people may ease the pressure, but it won’t fix the reason the contact is happening in the first place.

In my experience, looking more closely at the contact you already have can make a real difference. What are customers asking about? Where are they getting stuck? And what could change elsewhere in the business to stop the same issues coming back?

Find out what’s really driving contact

Overall contact volumes tell you how busy the operation is. They don’t tell you what’s making it busy.

Breaking demand down by contact reason, channel, product and stage of the customer journey can show where the pressure is coming from. You might find that a spike in calls follows a particular letter, bill or service update. Or the same question may be arriving by phone, email and live chat because customers aren’t getting a clear answer anywhere.

Repeat contact is just as important. When one customer has to get in touch three times to resolve one problem, that creates three separate pieces of work for the contact centre.

Once you understand why that’s happening, you can start addressing the cause instead of asking the team to work faster through a queue that keeps growing.

Fix the problems sending customers your way

Customers will always need to get in touch, especially when something is complicated, sensitive or unexpected. But some contact is created by confusing messages, broken processes or gaps in information.

A customer may be calling because an online form won’t submit, an email leaves out an important detail or information hasn’t been passed between teams quickly enough. The contact centre often spots these problems before anyone else because it deals with the questions and frustration they create.

The contact centre can’t fix all of these issues on its own. Sharing common contact reasons with product, billing, digital and operational teams can help the business fix the original problem rather than repeatedly dealing with the fallout.

Sometimes a small change to a message, process or update can prevent a surprisingly large number of contacts.

Tell customers what they actually need to know

Customers are less likely to chase when they understand what’s happening, what they need to do and when they’ll hear from you again.

The problem is that many proactive updates don’t go far enough. A message saying an issue is being looked into may sound reassuring, but it’s unlikely to stop calls if it doesn’t explain how long it might take or what happens next.

Your contact data can tell you where communications are falling short. If customers regularly call after receiving a particular email, text or letter, there’s probably something missing from it.

Clearer updates can reduce contact and prevent frustration from turning into a complaint.

Make it easy for customers to use the right channel

Self-service can take straightforward work away from the contact centre, but only when it genuinely makes life easier.

Customers shouldn’t have to search through several pages, enter the same information repeatedly or get stuck in an automated journey that can’t cope with anything outside the norm. When that happens, they usually contact the team anyway, only now they’re even more frustrated.

Simple, repeatable tasks should have a quick route, while customers with more complicated issues should be able to reach a person easily.

Automation can work well for status checks, common requests and routine updates. Experienced advisors can then spend more time on conversations involving vulnerability, complaints, financial difficulty or complex account support.

Build more flexibility into the operation

Even after you’ve reduced avoidable contact, there will still be times when demand rises. Seasonal peaks, service problems, regulatory changes and business growth can all put extra pressure on a team.

Flexible external support gives you more options than simply recruiting permanent staff. It can add capacity during busy periods, provide specialist skills or take on a particular area of customer contact. The support can then change as the needs of the operation change.

At Sigma Connected, we provide a wide range of blended support across both day-to-day customer service and more complex work, including complaints, collections and support for vulnerable customers.

Our performance analysts also use live operational data and Power BI to spot problems early, track patterns over time and understand what’s driving contact. Clients see the same live data, so both teams have a clear view of what’s happening and where changes may be needed.

Together, that gives organisations the flexibility to respond when demand rises and the insight to understand where some of that pressure could be reduced.

See how we could support your contact centre

Talk to our team about the pressures you’re facing and where a more flexible approach could help.