bluethunder

One of my closest friends at work handles incoming calls when the call center hold times exceed 20 minutes or so. It is not her primary job to answer these calls, but her entire department of eight or so employees have been sucking it up for a year to help ease the burden call center cutbacks have caused.

During a previous conversation with her I mentioned something like, "Why can't we outsource or hire temps to come in and help with planned and unplanned events which we know will lead to a sustained, large volume of incoming calls?" The answer is simple, "The RES system is so complicated due to cryptic commands being entered into mainframe emulators (which happen to have barely enough CPU to support Windows XP), that by the time you could get temps or outsourced help trained to use the system the issue which caused there necessity will have been handled by the existing call center agents (and the people I mentioned above) working 10-12hrs per day for n number of days."

So, what are the alternatives? Here's a few off the top of my head:

a) Enhance the Web site to perform most, if not all, of the possible modifications a call center agent can do to a reservation manually.

b) Implement an automated feature which allows a person to virtually put their place in line, and have Midwest call you back when its your turn versus sitting on hold for 45-120 minutes

c) Over-staff the department, and make everyone part time. Then, in times of crisis you offer full-time hours. This avoids having to routinely pay overtime and full-time benefits

d) any combination of a, b, and c

My vote is for a combination of a and b.