Utilization Calculation
I’m pretty positive that my client’s utilisation target is insane, but I need a mathematical formula to show her so. Can you please help?
The facts:
- We do technical support for them, our AHT is 12 minutes (client wants it to be 10 minutes)
- we need a <10% abandon rate (SL threshold is not really a concern, use 3 minutes as an idea).
- The client is looking for an 85% utilisation and
- 15% non-utilised includes 40 minutes of allowed breaks (2*15 minute scheduled breaks, 1*10 minute bathroom)
Utilisation per hour is basically Handle time/sign on time.
Basic maths shows this to be improbable since it only allows 32 minutes of waiting for calls… but can anyone provide me with the Utilisation % Erlang calculation?
I can find the number of Agents vs. Service Level calculation, but I’m not seeing utilisation.
Question asked by Marianne
Here is the calculation for utilisation:
Utilisation (% of time an agent is occupied with any productive or billable activities) is calculated as follows:
Utilisation (%) = (Total logged-in time/ Total Shift time) x 100
It can also be:(Total talk time + Total Hold Time + Total Wrap + Available Hours) / Paid Hours
This is the only acceptable formula as per COPC.
With thanks to Ravi
Utilization (or Utilisation) is Often Called Occupancy.
We have written an article on How to Calculate Utilisation
There is an article on the difference between Utilization (or Utilisation) and Occupancy.
We have also written a good article on How to Calculate Occupancy
With thanks to Jonty
Utilisation
It’s insane!
Not withstanding the general technical problems, you’re going to have a HUGE attrition rate.
Long term running at anything over 70 is asking for problems.
Trying to push the AHT from 720 > 600 is going to drive it up even more!
Given the long AHT it implies a fairly high level of technical knowledge to be able to deal with a call, not just direct enquiries etc…
Have they considered the fact that the recruitment and training costs are going to go through the roof?
Ravi, What’s COPC? There are various ways of working out utilisation. No one method is 100% Correct, dependant on your view point!
With thanks to Dave
COPC
COPC is a quality standard like ISO 9001 etc, but is meant for BPO/Call centres only. You may get more details about them on their website
With thanks to Ravi
Utilization Calculation
32 mins of available time as part of the time that an agent spends on the phones (8 hours minus 40 mins breaks) equates to availability of 7% (32/(8*60-40)).
Using this as an upper threshold and the AHT of 12 minutes and a wide assumption on service level to match your abandonment rate you’d need to be receiving over 11,000 calls per week in order to reach a 93% occupancy rate (inverse of availability). So your argument could be that you don’t receive enough calls to drive that type of efficiency.
Given the info you’ve sent I guess you handle about 4,000 calls at the minute and have 40-odd FTE?
Also the 10% abandonment rate and the AHT are linked. A high abandonment rate target will encourage calls to queue, which will mean that it is much more likely that an agent will get a calll straight after answering another. Agents really can only work comfortably up to an occupancy of around 85%. Trying to get them to be more efficient generally has two impacts – longer AHT’s, reduced on phone time.
Agents will naturally do this whenever they feel under pressure to give themselves a break from handling one call after another. Try looking at the AHT when the agents aren’t under pressure, when availability is is around the 15% – 25% mark and see if it is lower.
With thanks to Eamon
Time Utilisation Diagram
“Using this as an upper threshold and the AHT of 12 minutes and a wide assumption on service level to match your abandonment rate you’d need to be receiving over 11,000 calls per week in order to reach a 93% occupancy rate (inverse of availability). So your argument could be that you don’t receive enough calls to drive that type of efficiency.”
And the client argument will be that you are overstaffed!
I would draw a Time Utilisation Diagram for this particular client, whilst you can have varied opinions these are meaningless when confronted with mathematical facts.
With thanks to Steve
Overstaffed
It appears to be a lack of understanding of what is possible given the circumstances under which the team currently run i.e. to hit service level (<10% abandonment), against the number of calls and the average handling time requires availability beyond the client’s current expectations.
Wouldn’t the “mathematical fact” of a Time Utilisation Diagram simply show them graphically what they already know?
With thanks to Eamon
