Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
The Tricky Job of Calculating Call Center Staffing Needs
Most organizations have predictable workflows, known demands and a routine workday. Those conventions fly out the window when it comes to call centers, and scheduling can be tricky and inconsistent. Fortunately there are some known elements of call center behavior that managers can utilize to ensure they have enough agents on hand to meet demand without overscheduling and being wasteful with their resources.
Companies like Stella Connect are in the business of providing technology to keep call center agents busy and motivated. The company offers some basic guidelines to call center managers to ensure they have the right amount of staff on hand. One formula, which has been around for decades, is the Erlang C formula, named after the Danish mathematician and engineer who invented traffic engineering and queuing theory.
Erlang C determines the number of call center agents needed based on call volumes, average handle time (AHT) and customer service goals. However, if any of those numbers are off, call center managers run the risk of overstaffing and wasting their resources, or not having enough agents on hand to deal with demand. The AHT number is the wild card in this equation, since it can vary greatly based on agent downtime for other activities as well as time of day or day of the week. Managers need to have a good “handle” on fluctuations throughout the course of a week, month and year to really get the most out of the Erlang C formula.
Customer service goals are also an important factor when calculating how many agents a call center should have on hand. Managers should have set goals for maximum hold times and the number of calls expected to be answered within a certain time frame. Stella Connect has done some research on this front via the StellaService Ecommerce Index, which examined 30 top ecommerce retailers like Amazon and Zappos. The company found that those companies increased their investment in agents year over year in order to increase their call response times.
Additional variables when calculating call center agent staffing include attrition, since high rates of agent churn are bad for overall contact center performance and will impact the other numbers. Performance management is of course another important factor, and motivating agents to learn new skills and excel at their goals is the key to keeping them happy and performing at the highest levels possible. Along those lines, motivation and engagement programs that offer rewards and incentives to high performing agents can go a long way toward positive outcomes for agents and overall call center performance.
The Erlang C formula offers a baseline for call center staffing, but it’s far from a precise calculation. Call center managers should understand all the variables that impact the performance and management of their particular call centers, and factor those in when calculating how many agents to have on hand at a particular time.
Edited by Maurice Nagle