How to Stay Ahead of Digital Customer Demand

As more customers shift to digital channels – such as social media, chat, and email – contact centres need to adapt how they plan and manage workloads.

Traditional approaches to forecasting and scheduling are no longer enough. To maintain service levels and avoid burnout, operations teams must adopt more flexible, data-driven strategies.

To find out more, we asked Adlai Salcedo, Marketing Manager at peopleware (formerly injixo), to explain how real-time forecasting and smart scheduling can help contact centres run more efficiently in a digital-first environment.

Video: Stay Ahead When Customers Are Using Digital Channels

Watch the video below to hear Adlai explain how contact centres can improve their forecasting and scheduling by staying ahead when customers are using digital channels:

With thanks to Adlai Salcedo , Marketing Manager at peopleware (formerly injixo), for contributing to this video.

This video was originally published in our article ‘Top Tips for Digital Channels – Forecasting and Scheduling’

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Three Ways to Stay Ahead of Digital Customer Demand

Here are three ways smarter forecasting and scheduling can help your contact centre stay ahead of digital customer demand:

1. Use Real-Time Forecasting to Track Demand Shifts

With digital interactions happening across multiple channels, contact centres must move beyond long-term planning.

“First let’s talk about forecasting. With the amount of digital channels that customers are now outreaching through social media, email, call, etc., it has become way more important to not only look at the long-term forecasting, but also the short-term forecasting.

This means looking at real-time data through intraday forecasting, or daily data, to make sure that you’re tracking demand shifts.

This helps you spot emerging trends, any spikes in contact data, and it helps you adjust accordingly. This allows your team to stay flexible, reallocating agents wherever it’s possible, and making sure that you maintain service levels.”

Real-time or intraday forecasting is now essential. It allows you to monitor spikes in customer activity throughout the day – whether it’s an influx of messages on social media or a sudden rise in live chat volume.

By tracking these shifts, you can quickly adjust staffing levels or reassign agents to the channels that need them most. This flexibility helps you maintain service levels and avoid missed customer expectations.

2. Schedule for Multitasking, Not Just Headcount

Digital channels often require agents to manage multiple conversations at once, as Adlai explains:

“Now let’s talk about scheduling. With agents being able to handle multiple conversations across channels like social media DMs, emails, chats, you need to make sure your WM system can handle multitasking when assigning shifts. This way you don’t overestimate how many agents you need.”

This means your scheduling needs to reflect more than just the number of people on shift, it should account for the complexity of the work.

Make sure your workforce management (WFM) system supports multitasking and assigns shifts based on real channel demands.

At the same time, avoid overloading agents by building in realistic break times and buffer periods. This protects service quality while supporting agent wellbeing.

3. Balance Efficiency With Agent Experience

Staying ahead of customer demand doesn’t just mean responding quickly, it also means keeping your team equipped to perform at their best.

Smart use of forecasting and scheduling can reduce pressure on staff, minimise burnout, and create a more consistent experience for customers, as Adlai continues:

“At the same time, you need to make sure that you’re not overwhelming your agents and making sure that the service quality stays intact.

Therefore, make sure to incorporate break times, and buffer times, so that your agents don’t burn out. And this all contributes to smoother and more efficient operations.”

By managing digital workloads more accurately, you create smoother operations and a work environment where agents are more likely to thrive and stay engaged.

Author
Robyn Coppell

Robyn Coppell has worked as Digital Content Manager for Call Center Helper since 2021. After University her first job was in a contact centre and has stayed in this space ever since.

She has experience of contact centre operational management, software systems, css and php coding. She edits a lot of the guest content that is published on Call Centre Helper.

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