Staying in control through the chaos of peak season

In the middle of peak season? Don’t panic. Many businesses struggle during the holidays, and support teams are on the front lines handling a constant influx of customer queries. With multiple support channels buzzing nonstop, keeping support staff on a regular schedule becomes a significant challenge. And let’s face it, planning can feel like an endless task, especially if you’re still relying on manual methods.

What are the issues with peak season?

During peak seasons, businesses face several challenges. For one, product or service demands skyrocket, leading to a significant increase in customer queries across various channels. Understanding the types of queries and their timing becomes crucial for effective support management.

Plus, staffing requirements constantly fluctuate as peak season ebbs and flows. Businesses must accurately predict and adjust their support staff levels to ensure adequate coverage for incoming queries.

Finally, as with any growing business, hiring more staff to cover the additional workload can be very time-consuming. Quick access to additional support staff is essential to prevent staffing gaps and maintain seamless customer support.

How to tackle peak season with workforce management

To proactively address the challenges of peak seasons, it’s essential to get ahead of the problem by scheduling enough agents in advance to handle the anticipated increase in incoming traffic. This requires accurate forecasting.

This is where Zendesk WFM Forecasting comes in. Zendesk WFM is a powerful solution that seamlessly integrates up to two years’ worth of Zendesk data. By leveraging this data, Zendesk WFM can forecast the inbound volume of work from various Zendesk channels, enabling businesses to predict the number of tickets, chats, and calls expected in the upcoming days, months, or even years. Additionally, Zendesk WFM Forecasting predicts the required staffing levels needed to cover the workload across different channels.

With this level of visibility, businesses can anticipate peaks and troughs in workload and take timely action to avoid potential disruptions. Businesses can also make informed decisions about adjusting their team schedules to ensure staff members are neither underworked nor overworked.

By optimizing staffing levels in alignment with the forecasted workload, businesses can effectively manage customer support operations during peak seasons and maintain high levels of service quality.

3 reasons why you need staffing forecasts

1. Avoid pitfalls in future staffing planning

   
   Peak season is a rocky time for most businesses, not to mention extremely stressful for support teams. By using an automated forecast, businesses can navigate these chaotic periods more effectively and make timely adjustments to their required staffing.

2. Losing the spreadsheets saves you time

   
   While many businesses still rely on legacy tools like spreadsheets for forecasting, there’s a compelling case for upgrading to a dedicated workforce management (WFM) tool like Zendesk WFM. While spreadsheets may suffice for basic forecasting tasks, the time saved by transitioning to a specialized WFM solution can be substantial.
   With Zendesk WFM, you can slash scheduling and forecasting time by up to 70 percent. This efficiency gain frees up valuable time and resources, allowing you to focus more on addressing real-time challenges and opportunities within your business.

3. Meeting SLAs boosts revenue

   
   Efficient staffing is crucial for maintaining both cost-effectiveness and customer satisfaction. When you’re overstaffed, resources are underutilized, impacting your bottom line. Conversely, understaffing can lead to poor service quality and customer loss, with studies showing up to a 65 percent defection rate to competitors.
   By leveraging Zendesk WFM Forecast, businesses gain valuable insights into future workload trends, empowering them to make proactive staffing decisions. So then, when Forecast displays the need for more staff, how does one solve for that? That is where the Get Labor app by ArenaCX comes to the rescue.

Putting your plan into action

Zendesk WFM’s forecasting and workforce management software gives Zendesk customers an integrated view of optimal staffing needs. But translating these insights into actionable plans can be challenging. Several practical factors contribute to this difficulty, making it crucial to focus on getting staffing right.

3 reasons staffing to your plans can be difficult

1. Hiring talent is harder than ever

   
   As of October 30, there were 10.3 million job openings in the U.S. alone. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, “If every unemployed person in the country found a job, we would still have 4 million open jobs.”
   Because of this labor shortage, companies have been “raising wages, offering sign-on bonuses, and even paying for college tuition” to attract talent (Forbes). Unfortunately for hiring managers, the labor shortage is likely to continue.

2. Retaining talent is difficult

   
   Not only is it more difficult to hire workers, it may be even more difficult to retain them. A well-publicized tidal wave of employee attrition termed the “Great Resignation” shows no signs of slowing down; in fact, up to 40 percent of U.S. workers are considering quitting their jobs (Fortune).
   Beyond the 47 million people who resigned last year, there is also the emerging trend of “quiet quitting,” where disengaged employees do the bare minimum to avoid termination. This trend further exacerbates workforce issues and undermines productivity and morale within organizations. The contact center industry has been hit especially hard, with turnover rates averaging 65 percent in 2022 and soaring as high as 80 percent in certain sectors, according to Medalia.

3. Ramping up and down strains your HR department

   
   Contact center leaders have long grappled with challenging staffing decisions, which have only been exacerbated by the current labor crisis. When faced with a significant decrease in demand, many companies hesitate to reduce headcount despite the downturn. This reluctance stems from the difficulty of finding and retaining talent, the investment in training employees, and the anticipation of demand returning in the future. Consequently, companies often opt to remain overstaffed during periods of low demand, despite the associated costs and inefficiencies.
   Conversely, during peak periods, business leaders are wary of hiring new staff internally, as the prospect of subsequently letting go of these employees after the busy season is unappealing. The extensive process of recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and training new staff poses a significant burden, both in terms of time and resources. Considering that the average new hire takes 42 days and costs companies over $4,000, according to Toggle, companies may choose to forgo adequate headcount during peak demand periods to avoid these expenses.

How to overcome the talent shortage and manage your workforce like a champ

The solution for many companies is outsourcing. With platforms like ArenaCX, accessing third-party talent has never been easier or more efficient. ArenaCX boasts a comprehensive marketplace comprising over 150 vetted outsourcing providers, totaling well over 500,000 skilled professionals. Boasting a diverse array of centers worldwide, along with gig players and remote teams, ArenaCX can accommodate virtually any outsourcing requirement, spanning different use cases, functions, industry verticals, languages, skill sets, and certifications. Whether businesses require support for seasonal needs or seek to establish long-term partnerships, ArenaCX offers flexible solutions tailored to meet varying demands.

For Zendesk users, ArenaCX powers the Get Labor program, an application that allows companies to source high-quality talent from Zendesk-approved providers with only a few clicks from right within Zendesk.

This is the perfect complement to your forecasting and workforce management system, allowing you to easily fill shifts, cover seasonal ramps, and scale your team up and down with demand changes.

Planning + action = results

As you can see, combining a workforce management solution like Zendesk WFM and an outsourcing solution like Get Labor by ArenaCX helps you save time and even increase revenue.