Chandler Galt of Talkdesk introduces us to shrinkage in the call centre, discussing the importance of the metric and how to reduce it.
Why You Should Be Tracking Call Centre Shrinkage?
Do you know how many of your scheduled call centre agents are actually available to take calls at any given time versus how many are on break, attending team meetings, doing after-call work, out sick or late to their shift? This percentage is known as shrinkage.
Understanding shrinkage percentage as a call centre key performance indicator (KPI), and knowing how to calculate and manage it can give you an edge in improving customer interactions, average handle time, service level, and your own bottom line.
What Is Call Centre Shrinkage?
Call centre shrinkage is the number of agents actively taking calls divided by the number of agents who are not available for any reason. Those reasons can include:
External Shrinkage Factors:
- Holidays & vacations
- Sick time
- Absenteeism
- Lateness
- Leaving early
Internal Shrinkage Factors:
- Scheduled breaks
- Lunch breaks
- Team meetings & training
- One-on-one meetings
- After-call work
Other factors might include participating in company events such as farewell parties, or other unplanned activities that affect schedule adherence, such as going to the bathroom, taking personal calls, or emergencies that cause the employee to leave unexpectedly.
Shrinkage Percentage and Workforce Management
There are many factors that can cause shrinkage, including some hidden ones that are not so obvious, as well as some that are beyond your control, and shrinkage percentage has to be taken into account when scheduling the number of agents needed to handle incoming call volume.
Call centres that consider shrinkage as a major workforce management (WFM) indicator when doing hiring and scheduling tend to meet a higher service level at a lower cost.
So how can you accurately determine your shrinkage percentage and what are some of the steps you can take to reduce it?
How to Calculate Contact Centre Shrinkage
Let’s say you need 100 agents to handle call volume during a half-hour period of time to meet your service level targets.
If at any given point during that half-hour period 30 agents are not available to handle calls, that is a shrinkage percentage of 100/30, or 30%.
The shrinkage formula is shown below:
Shrinkage % = Number of agents needed to take calls ÷ Number of agents available
At first, you might think, OK, I have a shrinkage percentage of 30%, so that means I just need to hire 30% more staff, or 30 additional call centre agents to hit my service level.
Actually, those 30 additional agents will themselves have a shrinkage rate of 30%, or about 9 out of 30, meaning you will need 9 more agents for your contact centre, and those 9 will have 30% shrinkage, so on and so forth.
Ultimately, if you need 100 agents and have a shrinkage percentage of 30%, that means you will need 143 agents.
We present our definitive method on how to calculate shrinkage, alongside the shrinkage formula endorsed by industry experts and information on how to apply shrinkage to the call centre.
Minimizing Call Centre Shrinkage
Tracking shrinkage manually or using contact centre software can help you identify where and when shrinkage is taking place. You may find that the highest shrinkage percentage occurs between 9 and 11am or 2 and 3pm, statistically the time when most team meetings are scheduled.
Seasonally, most shrinkage occurs during summer months or at school dismissal times. There might be certain teams or departments within the contact centre with higher shrinkage, or certain employees who take longer breaks, go to the bathroom more often or take more time for personal calls.
By knowing how shrinkage occurs, call centre managers can more effectively ensure agent schedule adherence.
Shrinkage and Customer Experience
One point to keep in mind when considering shrinkage for WFM is that reducing shrinkage should not happen in a vacuum.
Companies looking at reducing the amount of time agents spend in team meetings or training sessions to control shrinkage, for instance, should consider the impact those decisions might have on customer experience and customer satisfaction.
Often additional training is the first thing to go, which can have an effect on the overall quality of customer service that the caller receives.
Our panel give their tips on how to improve shrinkage.
Next Steps for Your Contact Centre
There are a number of Erlang calculators available online to help you calculate shrinkage by call volume, amount of time, average handle time and service level.
Erlang Calculator – for Call Centre Staffing (Online Version 5.0)
Now with Week and Month Planner and Upload Facility
For more great information, check out our Erlang Calculator
However, using contact centre software to monitor shrinkage for you can eliminate these manual steps and let you get back to the business of running your company.
For more information about Talkdesk - visit the Talkdesk Website
About Talkdesk
Talkdesk is a global customer experience leader for customer-obsessed companies. Our contact center solution provides a better way for businesses and customers to engage with one another. Find out more about Talkdesk
Author: Talkdesk
Reviewed by: Jo Robinson
Published On: 18th Jun 2019 - Last modified: 31st May 2024
Read more about - Latest News, Scheduling, Shrinkage, Talkdesk
