What Is Utilization?

For contact centres, utilization shows how advisors spend their paid time assisting customers or staying available to assist them.

Utilization Meaning

Utilization (also spelt as “utilisation”) shows the percentage of an advisor’s paid time that they spend assisting customers or remaining available to assist them.

For example, if an advisor works eight paid hours and spends six hours assisting or available to assist customers, their utilization is 75%.

How to Calculate Utilization

To calculate utilization, the first thing that the contact centre needs to find out is the total amount of time its advisors are available to help, or are productively helping customers, over a certain time period.

Contact centres call this “Logged-in Time”.

Secondly, the contact centre needs to tally the total shift minutes advisors receive pay for over the same period. Let’s call this “Total Shift Time”.

Once you have these two figures, divide “Logged-in Time” by “Total Shift Time”, then multiply the result by 100 to calculate utilization.

Utilization Formula

Utilization = (Logged-in Time ÷ Total Shift Time) × 100

Why Is Utilization Important?

Utilization helps contact centres understand how advisors use their paid time for customer activity.

It can also support workforce planning by showing managers how advisors spend their time and where they can use resources more effectively.

Reviewed by: Robyn Coppell