“IQ Services really made it easy. I learned all sorts of things about my routing tables that really caught me by surprise"

It was essential for a major player in the mobile & computing devices industry to know for certain its three contact centers could handle full calling volumes during an upcoming shopping season. The company turned to IQ Services for an answer to the question “How can we be sure our self-service and contact center solutions will really work when we need them?”

7000+ Ports of Self-Service

Throughout the planning stages of the engagement, the company and IQ Services explored various approaches to validating the performance of the contact center technologies and sites -- both individually and end-to-end and with gradual and burst traffic. Combined, the contact centers offered over 7000 ports of self-service capacity, Ultimately, the company decided the best approach would be to conduct StressTest™ performance and load testing for each of the three contact centers separately under full-load conditions. Then as appropriate, the three sites would be tested simultaneously under anticipated peak load conditions.

Automated Test Calls Act Like Real Customers

Three toll-free numbers were configured by the company’s carrier to deliver traffic as appropriate to each of the three geographically dispersed locations. IQ Services configured its testing systems to generate over 4500 simultaneous test calls to the three contact center locations using the toll-free numbers. The test calls were configured to act just like real customers calling into the self-service solutions and opting out to the contact center. The unstaffed workstations in each location were remotely controlled so log in, call answer and log out functionality could be managed. During the test, traffic flow was monitored as well as switch and gateway performance.

Uncovered Early Life Failures

StressTest™ performance and load testing quickly demonstrated that carrier routing had been improperly configured to deliver an unmanageable amount of traffic to the company’s unsuspecting, mission critical helpdesk. If customers had used the planned capacity, it would have brought down both the contact center solutions being tested and the unrelated helpdesk without warning. It was also determined that the carrier’s network provisioning was not delivering the promised level of calls to all channels in the contact centers. In addition, some of the circuit packs and servers were not working as required under load and had to be replaced. The company’s lead engineer was very pleased with the results of the testing activity. “[IQ Services…] really made it easy. I didn’t have to reconfigure or reattach anything on my end at all. I just told you what kind of traffic I wanted and you promptly delivered it. I learned all sorts of things about my routing tables that really caught me by surprise. By extending calls out to the actual agent workstations, we also uncovered an early life failure that would have been really troublesome if it had happened during peak calling right after the holiday.”

Disaster Avoided During Peak Calling Season

All in all, numerous service-impacting issues were identified within the solution – some in the carrier network and others related to the technologies and integrations. Fixes were applied to correct the issues and retesting was conducted to verify the fixes were effective. In the end, the company was able to go into the peak shopping season with confidence that its contact centers could handle the expected calling load.

StressTest™ for Systems of All Sizes

IQ Services’ StressTest™ performance and load testing services have made it possible for businesses of all sizes and configurations to cost-effectively validate the performance and customer experience delivered by self-service and contact center solutions. With a testing capacity of 20,000+ calling lines, IQ Services helps each customer configure a unique test strategy so everyone on the team can be confident the solution is and continues to be production ready – whether going live with a new installation or upgrading and fixing an existing solution.

To learn more about StressTest™ performance and load testing services, please contact us:

Thanks to IQ Services for the article.