The power of one in Call Center Staffing.

One of the hardest things to manage in many call centers is getting frontline staff to adhere to their daily work schedules. Most think, "Hey, there are dozens of other people on the phones now. What possible difference could it make if I just log off a few minutes early for my break? Just one person can't possibly make that much difference." Sound familiar?

Schedule adherence can be improved in many cases with a little education. Helping call center employees understand what impact one individual agent has on service and the workload of their peers can go a long way in getting them to stick to their planned schedules.

So just what is the impact of a person or two on service? Well, it depends. The impact on service depends largely on two factors: the size of the call center and the current level of service. Obviously, the smaller the call center, the greater the percentage share of workload handled by each person, and therefore the bigger the impact of his or her participation. For example, the table below shows the number of "bodies in chairs" required to handle 100, 300 and 600 calls per hour with a four-minute handle time at a 15-second average speed of answer (ASA). *Note what happens to the ASA when just one person is subtracted from the mix.

Because of the economies of scale of the larger centers, there is greater efficiency in the call handling process, and therefore the impact of one person is not as significant.

The other factor that determines the impact on service of any one single person is the level of service currently being provided. The better the existing level of service, the less the impact of one person, as illustrated below (using the example above of 600 calls per half hour and 240-second AHT).*

Impact On Service

Obviously, as staff numbers increase, service improves. As staff numbers decrease, service worsens. Depending on where the call center currently falls in the staffing/service curve, the impact of one person could be minimal (for example, going from 48 staff to 47 staff worsens ASA by only two seconds). On the other end of the spectrum, decreasing staff from 42 to 41 staff handling the same calls would deteriorate wait time from 80 seconds to almost 200 seconds--about 2 1/2 times the wait.

The good news about the impact of one person on service is that if your center is in a service slump, adding just one more person on the phones can make a tremendous improvement. On the other hand, losing one person in what is already a mediocre or poor service situation can really ruin service for that period of the day.

Impact On The Team

If the impact on service doesn't send a powerful enough message to increase schedule adherence, then perhaps peer pressure will work. The absence of just one individual can affect occupancy, as well. Occupancy is defined as the percent of logged-in time that an agent will be busy on calls compared to getting some "breathing space" in between calls.

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In our example, decreasing staff from 48 to 47 staff members increases occupancy from 83 percent to 87 percent--still in the acceptable range. However, if two people drop out in an understaffed situation and staffing levels drop from 43 staff members to 41 staff members, occupancy increases from an already high 93 percent to a burnout level of 98 percent. Knowing that they are affecting the workload and pace of their fellow team members may cause agents to think twice about dropping out of the staffing picture in an understaffed period.

Knowledge Is Power

Hopefully, a few charts and graphs illustrating the above staffing/service/occupancy relationship in your next staff meeting will help enlighten those agents who think their impact on service is insignificant. Simply educating agents about the effects on service and occupancy that one or two people can have will help them understand the importance of schedule adherence. This newfound awareness, along with consistent consequences for adherence, will likely increase cooperation with the scheduling process.

Table 1.

Hourly Call Volume  100 calls     300 calls      600 calls

Speed Of Answer     12 sec. ASA   11 sec. ASA    11 sec. ASA
Required Staff      10 staff      25 staff       46 staff
Minus One Person     9 staff      24 staff       45 staff
Speed of Answer     32 sec. ASA   17 sec. ASA    16 sec. ASA

Table 2.

Number
of Staff  ASA       Occupancy

41        197 sec.  98%
42         80 sec.  95%
43         43 sec.  93%
44         26 sec.  91%
45         16 sec.  89%
46         11 sec.  87%
47          7 sec.  85%
48          5 sec.  83%

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*The numbers in this example were calculated using Quikstaff, a staffing calculation tool available at no charge from The Call Center School at www.thecallcenterschool.com.

Penny Reynolds is a founding partner of The Call Center School, a Nashville, Tennessee-based consulting and education company. She is the author of several call center management books, including Call Center Staffing--The Complete, Practical Guide to Workforce Management. Contact her at [e-mail] or call 615-812-8410.