Bank holidays, January and other call peaks

A quiet phone that suddenly will not stop ringing usually has a reason, and the reason is often on the calendar. Peaks are the one part of the phone problem you can see coming, which makes them the cheapest to deal with.

Three kinds of peak

Dates fixed by someone else. The clearest UK example is the Self Assessment deadline. HMRC reported that 11.48 million people filed by 31 January 2026, that 475,722 waited until the final day, and that 27,456 filed in the final hour, between 11pm and midnight. An accountant sees this every January. Any business whose customers act against a fixed date has a smaller version of it.

Weather and season. A first cold week brings a rush of calls to heating engineers. A hot spell does the same for air-conditioning firms. A burst of rain finds the roof. You do not need statistics to know yours, because your call log from the same week last year will show it.

Holidays. Calls bunch before a closure, when people try to book or sort something out, and again on the first day back. Customers who are off work on a bank holiday have time to ring, and some will expect an answer.

The same few people, a lot more calls

Peaks hurt because the number of people answering stays the same while the number of calls does not. UKHospitality's guidance says a restaurant booking call typically takes three to five minutes, and longer at peak times.

Here is an illustration, not data. Suppose each booking call takes four minutes, the middle of that range. One person on the phone can finish fifteen calls in an hour. If twenty callers try in that hour, five of them are waiting or have given up, and that is before the person stops to serve a customer.

NHS England makes the same point for GP practices. Its guidance tells practices to smooth "the 8am rush and other peaks throughout the day", so busy periods are planned for in advance.

Find your peaks

Go back through last year's call log, or last year's diary if you do not have one.

1. Mark the weeks with the most calls.
2. Next to each, write what was happening: a deadline, a holiday, a cold snap, a local event.
3. Check the same weeks in the year before, if you can. A peak that appears twice is a real one.
4. Put the dates for the coming year in your calendar now, with a note two weeks ahead.

What to do before a peak

1. Say when you are closing, early. Put the dates in the voicemail greeting, on the website, in email signatures and on the door a week before. People ring less when they already know.
2. Get extra hands for the busiest days. Even one more person on the phones for a week changes the day.
3. Prepare the answers. If every caller will ask the same three questions, write the answers down and put them in front of whoever answers.
4. Change the greeting on the day you close, and change it back. A message saying you are shut for Christmas that is still playing in January tells callers you are not paying attention.
5. Clear the backlog first thing. The first morning back, ring the missed numbers before opening the post.

When extra hands are not enough

Some peaks are too sharp for a team to cover. For those, Ringar AI answers every call, takes the caller's name, number and what they need, answers questions from the information you have given it, and arranges a callback. Where a calendar is connected it can book an appointment during the call. The list of who rang is waiting in the dashboard when you are back.