Productivity Goals in a Call Center

Agent/Company Productivity: The age-old question

So I asked the question:  For those of you that track agent productivity, what ranges are you experiencing?

My “logged in” productivity goal is to have agent available time of 90% and my “billable” goal is 80%.  Billable time is determined by dividing talk time by paid time; I also track reassigns and error margin.

Logged in means the agent is available for a live call. For instance, on an 8.5 hours shift, we look for 90% logged in time; that is, 459 out of 510 paid minutes.  We pay for a 30 minute lunch and two 10 minute breaks. We look at “billable” time as highlighted time; this includes talk and wrap time.

Here are the summarized responses that I received:

·        Those who pay for ON/highlighted time only have around 84% productivity with an average call of 1.5 minutes

·        Most companies answered that they have a one hour, unpaid lunch and breaks

·        Very few companies averaging 1 minute calls have accounts that pay per minute.

·        Overnights are a problem for many companies with productivity dropping to 65-69%

·        Company-wide talk time versus paid time ranged from 48-55%

·        Many felt that when productivity increases, the quality of service starts to decrease and agents start to get burned out

·        Many utilization/productivity/occupancy ranges averaged 40-70%, but would like to see it around 55%-75%   

·        Many companies with productivity averaging 69-72% believe these ranges are higher than the norm.  If programmers and managers comprise 10%, then the total is still around 60%...still higher than the norm.

·        Many companies said they can’t see striving for 80% productivity in a typical TAS environment without serious danger of agent burnout, and that 50% utilization is fair.

It appears that those who track productivity agree that 50% utilization is an average number, and that 55-65% is achievable and could be a goal.

In calculating these numbers, it is important to understand the calculation—Paid agent time divided by billable time. We are discussing productivity and for the purpose of this discussion, management labor is not included.

- Owner, Jeff Zindel

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