Forecasting Calls

[Martin Jaffe]

Hello all,

Can you help me find some answers ?

I am trying to forecast incoming support call for a startup consumer electronics software/hardware product that has no historical infomation on support call for their products or competitor's products (in other words, their first product has not started shipping yet).

I need understand the expected incoming support calls based upon product shipments or the expected installed base ?

I am also looking for published results for verification and justification purposes based upon other consumer electronic companies or products.

Any ideas, directions or help you can provide is appreciated.

-Martin

[GinaD]

There is a few ways to go about that. One is a hosted software like Incontact or InControl. They monitor calls and lets you know how many calls come in. Gives you the ability to record and monitor the calls as well.

Gina
gina.dohna@ucn.net

[gkern]

I think that I can help you, but not without asking a few questions. You can email me back or call me for help (gkern@austin.rr.com or 512-934-0254)

There are a number of variables that impact "calls per box", especically with consumer technical products. While there are similarities between products and/or industries, I do not think you are going to find any data or white papers that are really going to be applicable. The resulting calls are fairly predictable for some products or services (ISP or PCs as an example), but most companies have fairly unique circumstances that will drive inbound calls.

Some of them are:
B2B or consumer (B2B drives far fewer calls)
Direct sale or retail/distrubution (direct drives more)
toll free or local number (toll free drives more)
visibility of support offering within documentation (some companies bury the number to avoid calls)
Method of shipment
Method of payment


I think that I could lock you in pretty closely to your forecast. The most important thing is to have a flexible operating model that will allow you to quickly scale (up or down) once you start seeing calls come in. From that point the volume should be fairly predictable and highly correlated to new sales. At that stage you will also start measuring top call drivers and repeat call types as part of your quality/call avoidance process.

Give me a call if I can help.

Greg Kern