When you first started your business, it was just you (and perhaps a partner or two) and a small office space. Over the years, you’ve added employees, departments, and capabilities. Eventually, you saw the need to equip your corporate office with a designated customer service center. Owning and running your own startup requires an unparalleled level of dedication, vision, and hardwork. But in addition to these qualities, you need a desire to keep your customers happy and to meet their expectations every step of the way. You have to be in lockstep with trends in product quality and the customer service experience. Nothing preserves customer loyalty more than ensuring that even during the busiest times, their concerns are addressed in a timely and helpful manner. But what about unpredicted spikes in call volume? How can your call center handle that? Tracking trends in call volume In order to best handle unpredicted changes in call volume, you must first establish when your busiest hours are and ensure that you’re well equipped for those times. Inbound calls tend to come in waves, with high points and stagnant points during the day. However, if you have international clients, your agents may be receiving calls all day in waves. Make sure that your supervisors are tracking your busiest hours, so that you can make sure that your team is well staffed. You should also track the reasons behind your fluctuations in call volume. Have you had a recent sale? Has a product been recalled? Keep in mind that high call volumes may not be a permanent situation, but rather a temporary one. Outsourced call centers After analyzing your average call volume, you may find that you’re missing coverage in the event of unexpected call spikes. In this case, it may be time to consider bringing on an outsourced call center. Outsourcers are typically more fully staffed and more capable of handling unanticipated increases in volume due to their larger capacity. They also tend to train their agents to be flexible and able to handle a variety of customer complaints, while in-house staff tend to be focused on single products or scenarios. Using skill-based routing, call centers can ensure that calls are dealt with efficiently and adequately, saving your customers time and you money. Additionally, an outsourced call center will be well equipped to capture and analyze data in reference to customer needs, requests, habits, etc. In the case of more advanced, cloud-based call centers, all of this information can be stored in the easy-to-access cloud. When searching for your ideal customer service solution, look for an Oracle call center.