Lunch Scheduling Solutions?

[jessicah]

We have a call center with about 47 reps. We have the following shifts 8:00-4:45, 8:15 - 5:00, and 8:00-5:15 with reps having staggered lunches at either 30, 45, or 60 minutes in length. We take a very hard hit to our service level during the lunch hours and we are looking at possible solutions to lessen the blow to the service level during this time. Any suggestions?

[sheldonoverton]

That's a common problem when you have such a short window of operating hours (8a - 515p if I read correctly). I would look at spreading out the amount of time that you offer lunches.

For example, typically, agents will start taking lunches anywhere from 4 hours to 5 hours into their shift start. You may want to look at extending that if possible, perhaps ranging between 3.5 hours to 5.5 hours into their shift. Increasing your lunch time decreases the amount of agents offline for lunch at any one time, leaving more agents on the phone.

Also, I would look into variable lunch start times based on call volume if you don't have them now. You may not be able to give agents the same lunch time every day. You may have to move lunch times based on volume within your lunch time range.

I hope this helps.

Sheldon Overton
sheldonoverton@aol.com