I'm pretty positive that my client's utilization 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% utilization, and the 15% non-utilized includes 40 minutes of allowed breaks (2 15 minute scheduled breaks, 1 10 minute bathroom). Utilization per her is basicly Handletime/signontime.
Basic math shows this to be improbable since it only allows 32 minutes of waiting for calls..., but can anyone provide me with the Utilization % Erlang calculation? I can find the # of Agents vs. Service Level calculation, but I'm not seeing utilization.
Thanks!!

Hi Marianne,

Utilization (% of time an agent is occupied with any productive or billable activities) is calculated as follows:

(Total talk time + Total Hold Time + Total Wrap + Available Hours) / Paid Hours

This is the only acceptable formula as per COPC.

Feel free to ask me if you have more questions.

Thanks,
Ravi

Marianne,

It's insane!

Not withstanding the general technical problems, you're
going to have a HUGE attrittion 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 witha call, not just DIR ENQ etc...

Have they considered the fact that the recruitmet 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!.

Regards

DaveA

Dave,

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 (copc.com).

- Ravi

As far as I can see it's a private company.

Whilst they set their own opinion of what is right
and ahve a very knowledgable panel be very wary
of any one saying "THIS IS THE ONLY CORRECT WAY".

Not an international standard. I'd really not
]like to compare it to ISO 9xxx

As I said , opinions vary.

Regards

DaveA

Hi Marianne

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 assuption 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 arguement 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.

Eamon

Dear all,

85% of agent utilization is asking for too much. How is ur company SLA's signed?

Client will always ask more n they r never happy for which you can not effort to loss your team members.

it is time to have a coffe with client n make them understand about high attrition in case we look for 85%of utuilization.

Do send me follwoing details i'll send you a very good report which your client understand very easly.

1. number of calls received.
2. no of calls answered.
3. AVg aht for the day.
4. agent Avg login time & agent avg prodt time.
5. how many application agents used to give n copie data in records.
6. attendence %, your shinkage target, head count etc
7. rest what you fill like sharing.

regards,
khader shaik

"Using this as an upper threshold and the AHT of 12 minutes and a wide assuption 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 arguement 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.

Hi Steve

That's not Marianne's problem.

Her client is saying that they should get a higher ultilisation out of the curent team, not that they need more staff.

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% aban), 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?

Eamon

Mathematics are not opinion and are undisputable. Let me put it another way if I may.
If a client gave you a pint pot and asked you to fill it with a pint and a half of liquid what would be the best way to demonstrate the fact that what they are asking for is not doable? Fill it with a pint and ask them for suggestions on where to put the rest would be my approach followed by a suggestion around giving me a bigger vessel.
The time utilisation model when prepared properly can be your pint pot.

Really? What's the square root of minus 4? Is 1 a prime number? Is the speed of light a constant. There's 3 that create a fair amount of opinion and dispute.

Like the anology though. Best not to ask a client for suggestions on "where to put something", just in case it turns ugly!

E

I was referring to less complex mathematics than those you quote.

I'm now off to have a rather large vessel extracted from my person.

..according to recent studies, the speed of light is not a constant, as the quanta are affected by large gravatational masses and can accelerate or decelerate depending on the influence of such bodies. For practical purposes the speed of light can be assumed to be a constant, but that is a mathmatical assumption and not the reality.

Of course, all this is beside the point.