Please be good enough to mention the method of calculating the number of agents required to handle calls in a given time period (Without using Erlang calculator)
How to calculate the number of agents required
Call Centre Helper Forum » Strategy
(12 posts)
(Handle Time * Calls) = Basic Seconds required
Seconds required / shrinkage % = Total Seconds actually required
Total required / Working seconds in day = Base FTE
Remember this take NO account of queuing ot arrival
distribution.
Regards
DaveA
Posted 7 months ago
Srikanth - The reason Erlang is so commonly used in some form is because it does a good job, and is really needed in order to give you meaningful data.
if you have 20 hours of calls you will probably have to schedule 25 hours of time, but without Erlang (or a similar alternative) you won't really know.
@ Applebyd - Should that be Seconds Required / Shrinkage?
Unless you report shrinkage as a number greater than 100% then the calculation is wrong. Traditionally shrinkage is reported as 100% - Non Productive Time is it not, which should give anything between 60-80%?
Posted 7 months ago
&*^^!!!!
Thanks Fixed........
That's what comes of posting at stupid o'clock
in the morning!
Regards
DaveA
Posted 7 months ago
Srikanth
Not sure why you want to do it without an Erlang calcuator?
There are a couple of free excel based Erlang calculators that could do the job for you here -
http://www.callcentrehelper.com/erlang-c-calculator-2473.htm
http://www.callcentrehelper.com/erlang-calculator-for-high-traffic-volumes-15797.htm
Posted 7 months ago
@ Kevin thanks a lot for ya info. @Dave I have posted this 'cuz of a requirement of my working place..In my previous working place i have used erlang throughout..But thanks for ya comment :) @Jonty...As always Thank you Sir!!!
Posted 7 months ago
Hello,
I have got the number of agents required in every half hour by using the Erlang calculator.
Now in order to come up with the actual number of FTEs required to cater the need.
I have done the below, but have a feeling that this is not really correct.
= (sum of number of agents required in every half hour)/ 2 to bring it to 1 hour/8 staff working hours a day/’shrinkage’
For example it looks like: 109/2/8/0.77
Could someone throw some light on this please!
Thanks
Posted 6 months ago
I posted the below in response to a similar question, may be of some help
Hi,
I've always regarded this as two seperate calclulations. If Erlang says you need 20 agents in a given half hour, then you put 20 on, obviously a bit of smoothing is required through some intervals as the volumes will vary.
Erlang is really for scheduling. I think what you are describing is a headcount model.
One simple way is just to tally up the total calls each month, multiply by AHT which then gives you the actual staff hours required. Then add in an efficiency figure (basically this would be the inverse of your availability). To that add on a percentage for Sickness (use your own actuals), holidays (depends on entitlement, but you would expect 10-15%, then other shrinkage. I allowed 12% for breaks, etc and then a further 8% for Admin (121's meetings, etc) These were all cumulative figs - meaning you add on hols, then add on sickness and so on.
Take that result and divide by 147 (assuming your agents work 7 hours, 21 days a month). After baking in a hot oven for, what you will have is your overall headcount requirement (albeit just based on 1 month - but rinse and repeat to build up a pattern)
With your overall headcount done, then use Erlang to decide on how best to allocate those staff by way of shift patterns, etc.
Hope that's of some use
Posted 6 months ago
Thanks so much Scott for the reply,
Could you mention how should I also add the SLA into the calculation?
Let’s say the target answer time is 90/20.
I am not very clear on the efficiency, could you elaborate?
Last thing, our help desk functions 11.5 hours/ 6 days a week whereas staff working hours/days is 8/5 days a week only!
So should I also incorporate this into the calculation?
Thanks,
Imti
Posted 6 months ago
Hi,
The SLA is built into your scheduling. One of the Erlang calculators that Jonty pointed you in the direction of would take care of that
The efficiency part is based on the fact that agents have available time waiting on calls. So if your available time is 10% then add in a 90% efficiency.
Your actual shift patterns shouldn;t affect your headcount requirement too much. It's the same amount of work, but just spread over a different period (which comes back to your scheduling) The 147 figure is just the number of hours that a full time agent would work in a month. It will vary slightly depending on the actual working days, but given that you would never change your headcount month by month, then the figure is accurate enough.
Regards
Posted 6 months ago
@ Scott
Not sure if it would be seen as needlessly complicating it, but some areas of shrinkage are cumulative whilst others aren't. It also may vary from one company to another.
For example (and I'm going to use 10% just to keep this simpler) if an agent is paid for 260 days a year, you would factor in Holiday, taking them down to 234 working days, and then factor Sickness as 10% meaning 23.4 days, ending with 210.6 days.
This would actually translate as a practice where you are allowing agents to be logged as both sick and on holiday simultaneously, as the sicnkess calculation is reducing the total amount of resource you are loosing for other areas of shrinkage. This would be correct depending on company practice, but some businesses say that is an agent is sick during scheduled holiday then the holiday would be given back to the agent to take at another point, in which case the sickness shrinkage should not impact on the total resource lost due to holiday.
It really varies from one category to the other. Obviously if an agent is on holiday then you wouldnt count breaks for this time, so it would be cumulative, but a day of sickness or holiday typically wont result in their 121 being cancelled so this would be a larger % of their remaining working time, or else done non cumulatively.
It can take a lot of thinking as to the order it should all be figured out in to get the actual end result. It might only be a couple of % different, but for large centres this could be hundreds of k out.
Posted 6 months ago
Hi Kevin,
Your points are valid, but if I've read you right that's not actually what I'm doing. My calcs are based on assuming that (just using fictional figs) 10% of staff are on hol and on top of that a further 5% are off sick. Then of those who are in there is an additional shrinkage to be added.
You raise a fair point in that the actual calcs would differ from centre to centre, but this can at best only be an estimate. I've never seen any headcount model that is more than that due to the variables involved.
Posted 5 months ago
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