Balancing Call Volume Load between Two BCM's

[BobZahn]

We currently have two BCM's installed for one of our clients. These two BCM's are currently handling a 60/40 split of volume. However we are having issues with absentism affecting service levels on the 2nd BCM. Since it is a smaller group of agents it is impacted greater than the first BCM. There are other issues to review but we are looking for a more permanent long term solution.

Is there any possible way to hook the two BCM's to each other that would allow us to operate the call center with one set of schedules? By separating the volume across the two BCM's we are left with managing the balance between volume and staffing for each BCM instead of balancing it for one larger skillset.

Any suggestions or recommendations are appreciated.

Bob

 

[3Sixty]

Hi Bob

Can we have some history about the sites.

How many phone agents,lines etc

Just to advise you in the best possible way

Marshall

http://www.marshallshouse.co.uk

 

[BobZahn]

The first BCM has 3 PRI's and an expansion unit so it can handle 48 agents. The second BCM has also has 3 PRI's but with no expansion unit so it can handle a maximum of 32 phones. between the two BCM's we have 70 active phones for agents and four phones set up for the supervisors.

Average monthly call volume is 100000 to 110000 and the volume is currently split between the two BCM's on a 60/40 split on BCM1/BCM2.

There are approximately 50 to 60 incoming lines of traffic and I have provisioned the lines based on historical volumes to get the 60/40 split we currently have.

The site currently has 70 agents staffing these phones but they will be ramping up to a total of 81 agents by end of this month.

Any assistance is appreciated. let me know if you need additional background info.

Thanks

Bob

 

[3Sixty]

Is this an outbound and inbound call center?
How many extensions do you need on each site?
Do you have two sites because you can not get all the extensions on one BCM?
How many lines?
Have you thought about a succession?

The first BCM you have got 6 buses available in the system resources if you have 3 for PRIS you should have 3 buses available for extensions.You could have 3 DSM32+ which will give you 96 extensions in total.You could also add IP phones. The call center pro will give you 80 active agents and 250 configured agents.You can have 50 skill sets max.

I was just curious Bob are you the installer or the user?

Did you design the solution?

Marshall

http://www.marshallshouse.co.uk

 

[BobZahn]

Marshall

This is an inbound call center and the two BCM's are in the same office. We went with a 2nd BCM as the third party reseller of the Nortel BCM's suggested we may over extend the first BCM if we try to add more seats to the first BCM taking into consideration the monthly call volume we are experiencing. In addition, before we installed the 2nd BCM we were experiencing busy signals during peak hours of the day as the call center was receiving more than 69 calls at the same time which is all the three Digital Trunk Modules could accept with the three PRI's. We had three more PRI's we could use and that is when the solution of a 2nd BCM was decided on. I had not found this site until after the 2nd BCM was being installed.

It didn't quite make sense to me why an expansion module was offered, and we are only using one bay in that expansion module, but we could'nt expand the system for more seats. IP phones were not an option we considered as the client preferred wired seats.

We have partnered with this company in order to provide them with solutions and services to help maximize their call center performance. Although the Nortel BCM unit is a new experience for us we are using our experiences and learnings from our own call center to assist our client's effort in establishing a well run and efficient center of their own. This includes assistance in installing the BCM unit as well as other software solutions our company produces for the call center industry.

 

[3Sixty]

You said above you have 70 agents between the BCMs

How many other extensions have you on site. I appreciate you have line issues but you should have no problems adding additional agents on each site to give you the flexability to swap agents from site to site. If the primary problem is the amount of calls you can receive on any BCM you could link the 2 via IP but I still think you will run into problems regardless.

I am trying to piece the puzzle together but I am still have a few questions.

Can you give your wish list for each site and I will see what I can come up with.If you have a spec you can get me on my website and email the spec. Things like how many inbound lines for each site how many active agents how many additional extensions that are not agents etc.

Marshall

http://www.marshallshouse.co.uk

 

[BobZahn]

The basic issue is balancing agents between the two systems to ensure adequate coverage.

We have 40 phones available on BCM 1 so we have 60% of the volume going there and 40% going to the 2nd BCM which has a maximum of 30 phones available.

That gives us the 70 seats we currently have wired between the two BCM's.

Currently we have 70 agents handling calls and that will be ramped up to 81 agents by 1st week of November.

In a perfect world I would like suggestions or options that would allow us to divide the volume across the two BCM's but also give us the option to overflow or transfer volume from one BCM to the other if service level starts to suffer on either of the BCM's or if calls in queue reaches a specific number.

Instead of balancing agents across the two systems by moving them or having them toggle between the two systems I would prefer to find a routing option that would move the volume to the BCM that is less busy.

 

[3Sixty]

You will need to link the two BCMS via IP trunks. You would then have to set up overflow rules to send it to dummy extensions forwarded to the remote system.Again I would need more info to advise you correctly.You will have to route calls to extension numbers and then set up the system to answer with the correct skillset. It will be messy and will require someone with alot of experience in setting up the BCM. I think you really could be throwing good money after bad by going down this route. I think realistic you might want a new system to facilitate all of your needs.

The other option is to set up the BCM 1 with all 80 agents and then use BCM 2 to send all the calls to BCM 1 via IP trunks with all 80 agents you should be able to handle the majority of the calls but you will still require the IP trunks and someone to set all of this up correctly.Again a new system is going to be cleaner. If this is only an add on rather than service dependent you could have a go but you will need an IP trunk key code for every call you want to send accross from BCM 1 to BCM 2.

I hope this makes sense.

Marshall

http://www.marshallshouse.co.uk

 

[BobZahn]

Well I guess what ever route we go a simple solution is not available here!! I didn't expect one but I also don't want it to be so messy that we are unable to make programming changes for new or additional volume.

What new system are you referring to instead of working with our existing BCM 400's?

Bob

 

[3Sixty]

How many lines do you need and how many extensions?

Marshall

http://www.marshallshouse.co.uk

 

[BobZahn]

Based on our scheduling of 81 agents we have a peak of 70 desks utilized which is exactly what we have wired now between the two BCM's. We also have four phones wired for supervisors and monitoring purposes.

We have approximately 52 lines on BCM 1 and 20 lines on BCM 2.

 

[3Sixty]

I would have said na Avaya product but I think it can only have 75 call center agents. But may be some will correct me. The next step is something like a succession but will cost alot more to get the same functionality as the BCM.

Marshall

http://www.marshallshouse.co.uk

 

[BobZahn]

LOL. We actually use Avaya in our own call centers but the cost of a PBX was not viable for our client.

I'm sure we can find a way to make balancing the load between these two BCM's easier to manage. In actuality the load is staying rather consistent and the main issues are consistency in staffing on each BCM. We are issuing new schedules for November 1 and will move some agents temporarily to fix our current imbalance.

Thanks for talking this through with me.

 

[3Sixty]

If you buy some IP trunks you can send the calls across to the target line by activating a line divert in the programming it is very simple. But it has to be involked by you the user. You will also need to set up the IP trunks between the 2 bcms.

If you register on my website I will send you some info that might help you with your call center and IP trunks.

Marshall

http://www.marshallshouse.co.uk

 

[BobZahn]

I appreciate any assistance you can provide.

Where do I register?

 

[3Sixty]

click on the link on below and fill out the register tab and I will email you the info. You can also download the call center info in the downloads section on the web site once you have registered.

Marshall

http://www.marshallshouse.co.uk

 

[BobZahn]

Thanks

I have registered.