The World Cup is more than a global sporting spectacle. It can be a massive operational stress test for customer service.
Whether you are managing a contact centre for a pizza delivery chain bracing for halftime order surges, a retail brand dealing with post-match victory splurges, or a business capitalizing on a successful World Cup marketing campaign, the challenge is almost always twofold: customer demand spikes aggressively, and there is a high probability your entire workforce wants the same time off to watch the matches.
Whether in Scotland, England, or even the host country of the USA, balancing these conflicting requirements requires moving away from static spreadsheets and antiquated WFM tools.
Contact centres need a unified, data-driven workforce management (WFM) strategy. Here is how to manage the ups and downs of the World Cup season (for a contact centre, anyway – I can’t help with your ups and downs as a fan).
Forecasting the Football Frenzy: Managing Demand
During major tournaments, historical data from last month won’t help you predict tomorrow’s volume. A game going into unexpected extra time or a dramatic penalty shootout can shift consumer behaviour in minutes.
Integrate external data into your WFM: Modern forecasting cannot live in a silo. Full-service WFM platforms allow you to pull external data sources, like match schedules, team progressions, and even real-time weather, directly into your forecasting environment to predict volume trends more accurately.
If the home nation plays at 7:00 PM, you can model scenarios in advance to ensure you are proactive, rather than reactive.
Leverage AI for intraday agility: When a match deviates from the expected timeline, real-time WFM engines monitor agent adherence and flag when actual demand drifts from the forecast.
An AI-driven system can instantly recommend or automate actions like adjusting break times, rescheduling offline activities, or dynamically moving staff between channels if a game turns into a blowout and volume drops.
Cross-train for channel flexibility: spikes often hit specific channels first (e.g., a massive surge in live chat or app support during the game, followed by voice calls afterwards).
A comprehensive WFM solution helps you build and track multiskilled agent schedules so you can dynamically route staff to where the pressure is highest.
And a true automated intraday engine manages teams to make the most of opportunities to use your cross-trained teams.
The “Everyone Wants Time Off” Dilemma: Managing Supply
You cannot grant everyone time off for the final, but flat-out denying requests damages morale and drives up absenteeism.
The goal is to share the operational burden while giving agents as much autonomy as possible. It all comes down to fairness.
Empower agents with service-level-safe shift swaps: instead of rigid, top-down scheduling, use full-service WFM platforms that feature automated, peer-to-peer shift swapping.
Agents can negotiate among themselves to catch their favourite teams and even handle complex “red-to-red” moves safely, without dropping service levels or creating an administrative nightmare for planners.
Implement micro-shifts: move away from rigid 8-hour blocks and offer hyper-flexible split shifts. An agent might be perfectly willing to work the morning rush, log off for two hours to watch a critical match, and log back in to cover the post-game spike.
Automate fair holiday and time-off allocation: When half the floor requests the same three-hour window off, a manual “first-come, first-served” system creates resentment.
Modern WFM platforms use automated, algorithmic leave management to assess exactly how many partial-day or full-day holiday requests can be safely granted based on real-time capacity, avoiding disagreements and perceived favouritism, and any other issues. It ensures time off is distributed equitably and transparently, instantly updating schedules the moment a slot opens up.
Fostering a Winning Atmosphere
If agents have to work during the biggest sporting event of the year, make it an experience rather than a punishment. Offering this level of flexibility used to mean a mountain of manual administrative burden. Today, it is fully automated.
Through the QStory agent app, agents can manage their schedule flexibility, swap shifts, and request leave via a self-serve model that guarantees operational fairness while effortlessly protecting SLAs and avoiding bureaucracy.
Bring the atmosphere to the floor. Put the matches on muted screens in the breakrooms or on the operational floor if your environment allows it. Relax the dress code so staff can wear their team’s colours.
The contact centres that thrive during the World Cup don’t just survive the chaos. They plan for it by treating their agents as partners and using modern WFM technology to pivot in real time to empower agents and management alike.
By Scott Shaw, Customer Success Manager at QStory
Author: Scott Shaw
Reviewed by: Megan Jones
Published On: 23rd Jun 2026
Read more about - Expert Insights
