Contact volume forecast for fixture and on-sale days
Problem
Shift rotas for the supporter services phone line are set a fortnight ahead from a fixed pattern: the same number of people on a Saturday, the same two on a weekday evening, regardless of what is actually happening that week. The fixture calendar sits in one document, ticketing on-sale and renewal deadlines sit in another, and last year's call volumes exist only as an export nobody opens until after a spike. When a rescheduled midweek fixture lands in the same week as a renewal deadline, contact volume can run several times a normal day, but the rota was written before anyone connected the two dates. The queue backs up, wait times climb, and the first anyone hears about it is a complaint about being kept on hold.
Product idea
A dashboard that combines the fixture calendar, ticketing on-sale and renewal dates, and historical daily contact volume by channel to forecast the contact load expected on each of the coming weeks. Days where multiple events land together, a rescheduled fixture alongside a renewal deadline, are flagged as pressure days rather than left to be discovered when the queue backs up. The manager enters the planned rota alongside the forecast, so a shortfall is visible before the week starts rather than during it. It does not build the rota, assign shifts or touch the telephony platform: it produces a forecast and a comparison, and the decision about who works stays with the manager.
Who it is for
Supporter services managers and contact centre agents who build and check weekly rotas, and membership services leads who set renewal deadlines. Sponsored by the head of supporter services or the operations lead responsible for staffing costs.
Possible first version
A web dashboard that reads two files uploaded weekly: a fixture and events calendar with on-sale and renewal dates flagged, and a historical contact volume export by day and channel. It calculates a forecast from the day-of-week baseline plus an uplift for each flagged event, and highlights days where the forecast crosses a threshold the manager sets. The manager enters the planned rota against each day for comparison. There is no connection to the telephony platform, ticketing platform or case management system in version one: both files are uploaded by hand, and the forecasting rule is a simple additive model rather than anything predictive.
- Build classification
- Micro-tool
- Rough effort
- 1-2 week prototype
- Roles involved
- Supporter services manager, Contact centre agent, Membership services lead
- Relevant to
- Professional club, League office, Women's league, Venue & stadium operator
- Systems in play
- Telephony and contact centre platforms, Ticketing platforms, Spreadsheets
- Product framing
- Analyse data
Questions we get asked
What data do we actually need on day one to see this working?
A fixture and events calendar for the coming few weeks with on-sale and renewal dates marked, and a day-by-day contact volume export from whatever system already logs calls, chats and emails, going back at least a season if you have it. Both can be spreadsheets. The forecast is only as good as how far back the volume history goes, so a single quiet month produces a flat and not very useful forecast. A full season gets you a usable one.
Does this replace the rota or workforce planning tool we already use?
No. It sits in front of whatever you use to actually build and publish the rota, whether that is a spreadsheet or a dedicated workforce tool. Its only job is to tell you, before the week starts, which days are going to run hotter than normal and by roughly how much. The rota itself, and the decision about who is on it, stays exactly where it is now.
Our fixture list moves constantly with reschedules. Won't the forecast just be wrong half the time?
Sometimes, and it should be treated as a planning aid rather than a guarantee. The point is not precision to the call; it is catching the weeks where two or three things land together that nobody would otherwise have cross-referenced. Re-uploading the calendar after a reschedule takes a minute and updates the forecast for anything not yet rota'd. For dates already staffed, the tool just shows that the picture has changed.
Who ends up maintaining the uploads and the thresholds once this exists?
Normally the supporter services manager, since they are the one making the staffing call. The weekly task is two file uploads and a glance at which days are flagged, which is a few minutes, not a project. The threshold for what counts as a pressure day is worth revisiting after a season, since what counts as normal shifts as membership and ticketing patterns change.
Is this your workflow?
Tell us one sports workflow that still runs on paper, spreadsheets, WhatsApp or an outdated system. We will map it and show you what a simpler product looks like.
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