Seemingly every day a new article comes out in a local newspaper (or, more accurately, on the website of a local newspaper) about a county/town/state setting up an H1N1 call center. Obviously in terms of public safety (and sanity), this is a good idea, as an H1N1 call center provides an area for people to turn and have their questions about the H1N1 virus ("swine flu") answered by knowledgeable, local professionals (and the more local, the better, as those answering the calls with have a knowledge of any outbreaks going on in the area). Having dedicated call centers also keeps critical operations from being overwhelmed by reaction to the H1N1 hype. But I can't help but wonder how these call centers are being set up, and I open the comments section of this post up to anyone who has knowledge as to how this happens. Are desk phones that tie to an existing telephony infrastructure (i.e. PBX) set up in a room? Is a "ring all" option them set, and the first person to grab the phone gets the call? Any tracking of metrics for the call center, to see how people are being handled, how many calls are being accepted, how many people are in queue at any given time, etc?

I'd think that an on-demand call center solution would be ideal for such a situation. With on-demand technology, you request it as you need it, and scale-up or scale-down as required. So in the case of an H1N1 call center, there would obviously be a greatly increased demand during the fall and winter months, and such a center may not be in existence at all during the spring and summer. Great--the beauty of an on-demand call center solution is the ability to turn it on and off in seconds. And since it's on-demand, the pricing model is pay-as-you-go. Not using it in the off months? No problem! It'll still be there and configured for your use when you want to ramp back up, but why pay for something you're not using? And as for the phones aspect, in an on-demand model, there's not a need to place a bunch of them in one room (unless that's what you really want to do). On-demand, virtual call center solutions let you access the call center with any number of devices; if it's a seasonal type of call center, it's probably best to use a laptop you already have with a headset. This type of technology and device independence also allows you to work from anywhere you can access the Internet. So now if you're pulling call center hours, you can do it from home, should you be so inclined. Same goes for a company that is in the midst of an outbreak, as they will have a contingency plan for employees to continue to be productive, but will prevent the entire workforce from catching a contagious illness.

But these are just my thoughts. If you participate or run an H1N1 call center, leave some feedback in the comments and let me know your thoughts.

Update: Related - CDC: Swine flu has sickened 22 million in 6 months (Boston Globe)