Agent (FTE)

The number of full-time equivalent agents required to handle a defined workload to meet a service level or productivity objective

Agent attrition

Attrition is the rate at which staff leave the workforce over a given period of time. It is also referred to as ‘staff turnover’, and includes voluntary and involuntary departures from the organization as well as permanent movement into another role within the organization (e.g., promotion).

Agent work hours/day

The number of scheduled paid work hours per day per agent (e.g., excludes unpaid time such as lunch).

Average Handle Time/
Processing Time (sec) – Tenured Agents

The total elapsed time it takes to a tenured agent to complete a work item. The AHT for tenured agents is established through a quartile analysis and set at the mean for the top 3 quartiles. AHT/APT helps management to readily identify agents who may require more coaching and training support to be able to achieve organizational norms on a key productivity metric.

Business Area

Name of the department or line of business

Cost Per Work Type

Cost per work type describes how direct expenditures relate to the workload. It is a way of understanding the cost associated with different work types or channels within the contact centre and is an indicator of centre operational performance and productivity.

Effective Capacity Rate

The number of fully tenured agents required to meet work demand divided by the total number of tenured and non-tenured agents required to meet work demand.

Effective Required Agents

The number of agents required to meet work demand with a given AHT to meet a defined service level objective if all agents were at the target level of proficiency.

Graduation Rate

​To percentage of trainees that will graduate from a new hire training class

Head Count

The total number of full-time and part-time agents

Hiring Ahead of Attrition Costs

The cost to recruit staff in advance of forecasted attrition to mitigate loss of resource capacity within front‐ and back‐office operations. The length of classroom training is taken into consideration when calculating the cost of Hiring Ahead of attrition (agent weekly salaries * number of in‐class training weeks * number of new hire agents). 

New Hire Learning Curve

The monthly pace at which agents progress in their proficiency towards the target AHT

Occupancy

The percentage of time that agents are logged in, are productively busy with a customer activity, or available to do more

Overtime Costs

A percent of monthly agent budget allocated to overtime.

Overtime Premium Multiplier

The incremental salary cost for each hour of overtime (e.g., 1.5 or 2 times the hourly rate) 

Productivity

The percentage of time a non-phone agent is available to complete work activities in a given hour.

Scheduling interval

A 15, 30, or 60 minute block of time for which agents are scheduled

Service Level

Service Level is a measure of the percentage of calls answered within an established threshold. Actual service levels achieved as compared to established targets is the measure of staffing productivity and efficiency when targets are aligned to forecasted call demand.

Service Target

See service level.

Shrinkage

A percentage of planned or unplanned time spent on any activity that takes an agent away from their ability to handle interactions (e.g., vacation, sick time, coaching, training, meetings).

Staffing Ratios

The ratio of 1 support staff role to X number of agents based on corporate practice or capacity planning of support roles (such as Trainers and Quality Monitors).

Support Staff

Support staff include team leaders, supervisors, trainers, quality monitors, workforce management, operations managers/directors who support the agents in performance of their duties.

Training length

The duration of in-class/virtual training and post-training monitoring (nesting)

Work time constraint

Refers to the tolerance of work demand to deferability. Work that is non-deferrable are activities that require immediate attention (e.g., calls, chat), with action required and measured in seconds or minutes. Deferrable work are activities that can wait to be done in another interval (e.g., letter mail, work items) where clients are not waiting for an immediate answer/response, measured in hours or days.

Work type

The channel through which the work will be received including Inbound calls, Outbound calls, Email, Chat, SMS, Social, Letter mail, Fax, Work items, Other (e.g., in-person)

Work Volume

The volume of work expected to be received by the contact centre across channels which includes consideration of seasonality, trends, growth, future product/service changes, marketing promotions, customer sensitivity, and self-service deflection strategies.

Working days in a Month

The number of days each month in which the contact centre is open.