Productivity 
High call volume refers to when a contact center — or similar phone-based service — receives an unusually large number of calls that may exceed their normal capacity to handle them efficiently.
When your business experiences high call volumes, it can quickly create a snowballing effect of problems. Customers face longer wait times and growing frustration, while agents become overwhelmed and exhausted — leading to decreased service quality and even more dissatisfied customers. This cycle can damage both your customer relationships and team morale.
Learning call handling techniques to effectively manage high call volumes isn’t just about surviving busy periods — your business also needs to thrive. Explore these call center solutions to help you handle high call volumes while maintaining excellent customer service.
Common Causes of High Call Volume
Sometimes, you can anticipate high call volumes due to historical trends, and other times, they’re a complete surprise. Here are some of the most common sources of high call volumes:
- Seasonal or holiday fluctuations: Businesses often receive a high influx of calls around holidays and changing seasons since large groups have overlapping demands at the same time. For example, retailers might experience an influx of calls on Black Friday.
- Effective marketing efforts: Successful marketing campaigns can increase interest in a company’s products or services, leading to a heavy call volume. Limited-time deals or promotions can attract new customers and increase existing customer engagement.Â
- Service disruptions: System outages, website crashes, or service interruptions can cause customers to seek assistance simultaneously.
- Negative customer experiences: Dissatisfied customers may contact customer support to express their grievances, leading to increased call volume. For example, defective products or a system issue that affects orders can prompt customers to call for assistance.
- Social media trends: Viral social media trends or challenges can create a sudden surge in interest in a product or service, leading to increased call volume. Also, negative publicity or backlash on social media can drive customers to contact customer service to express concerns or seek refunds.Â
10 Ways to Manage High Call Volume Effectively
1. Offer live chats
Providing customers with an alternative communication channel reduces the burden on phone lines. Live chat allows customer service representatives to handle multiple conversations simultaneously, unlike phone calls, which require one-on-one attention, increasing overall efficiency and reducing wait times.
Live chat is particularly appealing to younger customers who often prefer text-based communication over phone calls. It also enables agents to quickly share links, screenshots, and step-by-step instructions that might be more complicated to explain verbally.Â
Agents can handle 3-4 chat conversations simultaneously without degrading the customer experience. Live chat can be a huge boost to productivity at no additional cost.Â
2. Take an omnichannel approach
Omnichannel customer service integrates communication channels such as email, social media, live chat, SMS, self-service portals, and mobile apps. Distributing customer interactions across multiple communication channels reduces pressure on phone lines while maintaining service quality.
Omnichannel processes create a unified approach where customer data and interaction history are seamlessly shared across all channels. This enables agents to provide consistent, personalized support regardless of the communication method.
3. Prioritize high-value and urgent callsÂ
Customer service teams can ensure that critical issues are addressed promptly by focusing on calls that are most important to the business or require immediate attention. This improves customer satisfaction and helps prevent escalation of problems that could lower revenue or lead to negative publicity. Additionally, prioritizing high-value calls can help identify and address recurring issues, leading to process improvements and reduced call volume in the long run.
4. Provide self-service options
Offering customers the ability to find answers or resolve issues independently can reduce the number of calls to their customer service call centers. You can achieve this through various channels, such as:
- FAQ pages: Creating a detailed FAQ section on your company’s website can address common customer questions and concerns. These answers often appear in Google long before the customer visits your website.
- Knowledge bases: Offering a searchable knowledge base filled with helpful articles and tutorials empowers customers to resolve their own issues.
- Self-service portals: Providing online portals where customers can manage their accounts, make changes, or track orders can reduce the need for human intervention.
5. Implement queue callbacks
Allowing customers to leave their phone numbers and receive a call back when an agent becomes available eliminates the need for customers to remain on hold for extended periods. This reduces customer frustration and improves overall satisfaction. Additionally, queue callbacks can help manage call center staffing more efficiently by better understanding call volume fluctuations and allowing agents to focus on calls that can be resolved immediately.
6. Deploy IVA bots and advanced IVR
Intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) can handle a wide range of customer inquiries over the phone, providing instant responses and reducing the need for human intervention. Advanced interactive voice response (IVR) systems can provide recorded answers or direct callers to a specific agent or department instead of waiting in a general queue. These technologies can free up human agents to handle more complex issues by automating routine tasks and providing specialized self-service options.
7. Leverage AI and intelligent call routing
AI can level up IVR and traditional call routing systems by automatically routing calls to the most appropriate agent based on customer query, language preference, and previous interactions. Intelligent routing systems can also consider each agent’s workload and breaks to ensure you serve the customer as quickly as possible.
8. Use WFM tools to forecast staffing
Workforce management (WFM) tools analyze historical call data, predict future call volumes, and consider various factors such as seasonal trends, promotions, and special events to forecast staffing requirements. These tools use statistical models and machine learning algorithms to identify patterns and trends in call data, allowing for accurate forecasting of staffing requirements.
By analyzing historical data, WFM tools can predict peak call times, identify staffing shortages, and optimize agent schedules to ensure adequate coverage during busy periods. This helps organizations avoid understaffing or overstaffing.
9. Monitor and analyze real-time call data
Tracking call center metrics such as average wait times, abandoned calls, and agent occupancy rates can give call centers valuable insights into their operations’ performance. Use this information to identify bottlenecks, adjust staffing levels, and optimize call routing. For example, if real-time data shows a sudden increase in abandoned calls, you can immediately address the issue, such as adding more agents or fixing the IVR system.
10. Consider outsourcing overflow calls
Partnering with an external call center lets you supplement your internal resources and handle a larger volume of calls without compromising service quality. Call center outsourcing can provide flexibility and scalability, allowing you to adjust your call center capacity based on fluctuating demand without needing to permanently hire and train new agents.
Additionally, outsourcing can help to reduce operational costs by leveraging the economies of scale offered by specialized call centers. However, it’s important to carefully evaluate outsourcing partners to ensure they align with your company’s values, quality standards, and customer expectations.
How to Identify High Call Volume
An industry benchmark identifies incoming calls exceeding expectations by 10 percent as a period of high volume. Additional indicators include:Â
- Longer wait times: If customers are experiencing significantly longer wait times than usual, it indicates that the call center is struggling to handle the incoming volume. According to SQM Group, a common goal in call centers is to answer 80 percent of calls within 20 seconds. Â
- High call abandonment rates: If customers hang up before speaking to an agent, it suggests that they are frustrated with the wait times or unable to reach an available representative. SQM Group notes customers abandon calls after waiting for two minutes and 36 seconds on average, and answering a call within two minutes has no adverse effect on customer satisfaction.
- Overloaded call queue: If the call queue is consistently full or overflowing, it signifies that the call center is unable to handle the volume of incoming calls and can’t accommodate new callers.
Manage High Call Volume Effectively with Nextiva
Nextiva empowers call centers to effectively manage high call volumes through a comprehensive suite of self-service solutions. With an AI-powered knowledge base, IVA, and IVR software, you can significantly reduce the burden on live agents while ensuring customers receive fast, accurate support. By implementing Nextiva software, you can maintain high service levels during peak periods and optimize CX.
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High Call Volume FAQs
Learn additional information about managing a high volume of calls.
High call volume means your team receives a larger-than-expected number of incoming calls. A high influx of calls implies that your team may be overwhelmed by requests, and your customers are likely waiting on hold longer than is acceptable, harming the customer experience (CX).
A high-volume call center handles a large number of incoming calls regularly. This can be due to various factors, such as:
🔹 Industry: Certain industries, like telecommunications, customer service, and financial services, often have high call volumes due to the nature of their products or services.
🔹 Company size: Larger companies with a broader customer base are more likely to experience high call volumes.
High call volume can be both good and bad, depending on the context. Positive aspects of high call volume include:
🔹 Increased demand: High call volume can indicate strong demand for a product or service.
🔹 Opportunity for growth: Increased customer interest can encourage businesses to expand their operations or introduce new offerings.
The negative effects of high call volume can be:
🔹 Overburdened agents: High call volume can lead to overworked and stressed customer service agents.
🔹 Long wait times: Customers may experience long wait times, leading to frustration and dissatisfaction.
The call volume your business receives can have a direct impact on the customer experience in the following ways:
🔹 Agent fatigue: When agents are overwhelmed with calls, their efficiency and ability to provide quality service can decline. Consistently high call volume can lead to call center burnout, resulting in decreased patience and less empathy for customers.
🔹 Customer wait times: Long wait times can lead to customer frustration and dissatisfaction. They may abandon the call altogether or choose to do business with a competitor.
🔹 May reject calls: If a call center’s technology cannot handle the volume of calls, it may have to reject incoming calls, leading to lost business opportunities. Rejecting calls can damage a company’s reputation and erode customer trust.
🔹 Become a cause of negative reviews: Negative customer experiences due to high call volume can lead to negative reviews and online complaints. Those bad reviews can damage a company’s reputation and deter potential customers.
