Call Center Metrics: Occupancy vs Schedule Adherence

If you are looking for the best method of measuring the performance of your call center, then metrics are those tools you should initially focus on. However, designing and implementing the metrics strategy may be a difficult and painstaking process that will take much time and effort. This is because there are dozens indicators you may consider significant for your contact center, but not all of them will be really be useful. When choosing metrics to be analyzed, you should pay attention to such factors as strategic goals, call center operations, available resources and budget, customers etc. With regard to this, the following metrics seem to be the most important and valuable: service level, average handle time, the process of quality monitoring, occupancy and schedule adherence. Below we will focus on schedule adherence and occupancy, because not all the managers realize how to measure and introduce them properly. Meanwhile, both metrics matter greatly when it comes to determining adequate call center performance and staffing.

Mechanics of the call

Mechanics of the call

Schedule adherence is one of the most common metrics that helps define whether the agents work in compliance with the scheduled amount of time. To measure this indicator, you should take the overall amount of time an employee is available for handling calls and then divide it by the amount of scheduled time. This metric may involve the amount of time an agent is engaged into completing tasks not related to calls, including breaks etc.  Contact center adherence may be viewed both on a group and individual basis. Some call centers tend to monitor this metric in real-time, whereas others take into account the historical data. Nonetheless, any serious deviation from pre-set adherence objectives means that there is an increased need for extra coaching and employee training.

Positive and negative performance of kpis for call centers

Positive and negative performance of kpis for call centers

Call center occupancy is also referred to as agent utilization. This metric indicates the total amount of time employees spent either on phone or engaged into after-call work. Thus, an 80% rate of occupancy means that the agents are busy for 80% of the time and wait for the call to be handled for the rest 20%. In case the occupancy rate remains too high for a certain period of time, your agents may be highly exhausted and unable to handle the calls effectively. If this indicator is too low, it may signify that your contact center is overstaffed, which results in extra financial expenditures.

Both schedule adherence and call center occupancy should be measured carefully and consistently so that the managers of this organization could be able to monitor and manage the current performance of their organization properly.

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