A relatively large part of any call center agent’s job consists of downtime. Downtime is defined as the amount of time in between each call that usually hinders levels of productivity. There are many false beliefs regarding actions that take place within call center operations, and this is part one of a series on how to increase employee efficiency throughout downtime.

Myth #1: Five weeks of idle time?

Every day, in call centers, agents can spend up to 11 percent of their total time completely idle, just waiting for the next call to take place. While this is usually small allotments of time ranging from 30-90 seconds, when these small amounts of time are combined, it adds up to a huge chunk of the workday.

Workforce management tools are crucial in order forecast call volume. Usually these forecasts are based on what has happened in the past but they cannot prepare for lost time due directly to two separate factors. First of all, the data is not evaluated in real time.

However, with Knowlagent’s real time integration with the Automated Call Distribution (ACD) system businesses can quickly and easily find the time for agents to complete the tasks on their to-do list – without causing service levels to decrease. This solution helps to ensure that crucial time-sensitive tasks are delivered during drops in call volume. Plus, if an agent is engaged in Active Wait Time activities and the call volume suddenly increases, Knowlagent’s solution has the ability to inform the agent that they must return to handling calls.

The second limiting factor is that these tools only look at call volume in 15 minute intervals, which is usually a much larger amount of time than a typical wait time.

Knowlagent maintains the technology to quickly analyze how much time was moved from shrinkage to Active Wait Time. This solution can run reports in real time by activity type, users, agent, or types of agents. Agent managers can easily visualize what tasks still need to be completed and decide what changes, if any, need to be made to the Activity Queue to keep call center operations running efficiently.