The UK are expecting some strange happenings during several mornings in June. Due to the world cup games occuring between 630am and 215pm BST, we were wondering if anybody has an data relating to changes in call patterns during major sporting events at these sort of times.

Interesting and being pro-active !!

There must be some form of data available for these special events.The electricity companies know when there will be a surge when people put on their kettles, etc after Eastenders or Pop Idols, so you would assume that call centres have some form of data available for sporting events.

If anyone has such research, data, could they let us know.

Many Thanks
Lindsay

The call volumes will be controlled to a large degree by the success of England in the world cup. We are predicting a lower volume during matches but a higher volume after they have finished. In essence the morning peak will move up the day.
Calculated by the tried and tested finger in the air method.
I think the number of callers will get lower the further England get in the competition. In the 94(or Euro 96, can't remeber now) finals when England played Germany in the semi's I was working in a video shop during the match. I saw 3 people over 2 hours of what was normally a rush period. Even the non football fans where taken in by the game.
However these matches being early morning may have a different effect.
On the same tack what are you going to do regarding football sickdays, we are putting screens up in the call centre and asking for volunteers to work, so the fans can see the match and still work afterwards/before. We are also changing shifts to fit where possible.

I worked a bit on this whilst working in the MIS team at my present company.

As Alex mentions, you will have to work on the assumption of very low volumes during games but peaks after them. Bear in mind that 20 million people watched England Vs Argentina in the World Cup 2nd Round of 1998, granted it was an evening kick-off. However a recent survey suggested anywhere between 15-20% of people will alreayd have the days booked for holiday and a further 20%+ suggest they will take a sicky on the day of England vs Argentina.

So you have two things - how do you forecast the change in volumes and then what do you do about shifts for the day to prevent sickness?

regarding volumes there are a few events in recent times that come close (in terms of impact on a business in general). The Queen Mothers funeral would be the closest recent event in terms of National impact, unfortunately most seem to be tragedies/sad occassions in recent times. Other events, if you have historical info would be things like the Olympics, which was very early morning UK time.

Bear in mind that even the Ministor for Trade has suggested companies should be highly flexible during the key games - and that employees should return this felxibility by not expecting "free" time off. Oh and it's the Queen's Jubilee that week as well and it the half term holiday for schools has been shifted into the first week in June as well...good luck.