What Is Call Riding?

With so many specialized terms in call centres, contact centres, and BPOs, you may not know what “Call Riding” is or why it matters.

We take a quick look at what call riding entails, how to identify it, and why understanding this practice is important for maintaining efficiency and accountability in customer support environments.

What is Call Riding?

Call Riding is a term that means instead of simply transferring a call in a contact centre – to a supervisor, or another advisor, for example – the advisor (or agent) conferences in the other employee and stays on the call listening to both the other employee and the customer.

Call Riding can be used for positive purposes, such as training, allowing an agent to learn from how a colleague handles a particular call. However, it can also be misused by agents who stay on the line without actively engaging, sometimes as a way to avoid work, such as waiting for a lunch break or checking personal devices.

The automatic call distribution (ACD) system registers the agent as active on a customer call, even if they are not truly participating, making this a subtle trick that can be hard to detect.

How to Spot Call Riding

Identifying call riding can be challenging, as it often blends in with legitimate call activity on the agent’s Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) statistics. However, some methods can help supervisors spot and address misuse:

Review Call Recordings with Long Handling Times

Calls that are significantly longer than average may indicate possible misuse. Listening to call recordings of calls with long handling times is the best way to spot if an agent is actively participating or simply riding along.

Analyze Call Metrics Over Time

Patterns in handling times and occupancy rates may reveal recurring misuse. If an agent consistently shows unusually long handling times without clear justification, further investigation may be warranted.

Why Call Riding Matters

Call Riding has both functional and problematic impacts on contact centre operations:

Positive Training Tool

When used legitimately, call riding can be an effective training tool. New agents can gain first hand insight into call handling techniques, listening to experienced colleagues as they navigate challenging interactions and resolve issues.

Potential for Misuse

Some agents may use call riding to appear engaged on a call without actually performing any work, artificially inflating their active call time to avoid new customer interactions or even to take unauthorized breaks.

This misuse can distort key performance metrics, such as Average Handle Time (AHT) and Occupancy Rate, making it difficult to assess productivity accurately and fairly.

Author: Jonty Pearce