When’s the Best Time to Ring A Call Centre?

Best Time to CVall

Hello there – I’m a Journalist writing a magazine feature on the best time of day to do various things including ringing a call centre……

The people who run the forums suggested I post this on here and hope some of you call centre experts out there can offer some advice, tips and suggestions?

what I’m after is finding out what time of day is best to call to have the best chance of getting straight through ie would 2pm on Monday afternoon be best as most call centre staff at their desk and if people are at work lines may not be as busy etc? And does this vary according to where the call centre is based i.e. if it’s abroad so you’re calling a UK company but the call centre’s in South Africa or India? We’re after fairly generic advice as I realise this could vary according to which company you’re calling etc.

Question asked by journalist

Often off peak

There is no hard and fast rule, but the best times are often off peak.

Just after the call centre opens is usually good. 10-12am is normally very busy, as is 2-3pm.

I often find 4-5pm to be good. Weekend and evenings can often be surprisingly be quite good times to get in touch. After 9pm can work well for a 24 hour call centre.

With some call centres (e.g. BT fault reporting) you may find that filling in an online form can work better than calling. You may also find a letter is a good deal.

You may also get a few hints on getting through to a company through Twitter. If you go to search.twitter.com and type in e.g. “O2 customer service” you will often find out how well O2 are performing.

Some call centres though are always overloaded. I have heard that wait times of 45 minutes are possible with one broadband service provider, so may not be a good time for some companies.

With thanks to Jonty

Demand to be spread out a little better

An ISP in Australia started publishing live wait times for their technical support line on their website and actually found that callers would check that first before picking up the phone thus allowing the demand to be spread out a little better keeping average wait times down as well as encouraging those customers who could complete their transaction online or via an automated phone service to try doing so before seeking live agent assistance.

Not exactly what you asked, but related I thought!

With thanks to slambert

As soon as the lines are open

Simply put, the best time to call is when other customers or prospective customers are unlikely to be able to or want to call. As Jonty says, as soon as the lines are open if this is early e.g. 8am. It also depends on what business you are calling. If the business is likely to be dealing with customers who are busy professionals then 10 – 12 and 2- 6 could be good times. For other businesses dealing with a broader socio demographic customer base, these are likely to be busy times. Evenings after 7pm, if the line is open can be a good time because who wants to make that call when they get in from work unless they really have to. Weekends can also be good times. Some business with an eye to service will actually tell you when the less busy times are as part of their wait message. For one contact centre operation that I managed, I used to include details of the best time to call the line in the fulfilment letters we sent out after a sale was made. Hope this helps.

With thanks to Janette

As soon as the Call centres Open

The local Citizen’s Advice Bureau here advise to call as soon as the call centre opens. This is typically 8:00am or 09:00am. You can find the details on their website.

I used this to good effect when I needed to reach a travel company. they had call waits of over 1 hour to get through. i tried a number of times over the week. I called within one minute of the centre opening. I still had to queue but got answered within 20 minutes.

Thanks to Jonty