Costs and productivity

It has been noted that the main costs in a call center are salary costs of agents, and that
therefore agents should work as effective and efficient as possible. The most important
performance indicator for effectiveness is the First-time-resolution (FTR, also called first
call resolution) percentage. However, together with the average holding time (AHT) of a
call, it is also an important efficiency indicator: if the FTR is high, then few follow-up
calls are needed. Increasing the FTR and reducing the AHT is a major objective in call
centers. It is mainly obtained by proper training of agents.
The main indicator for efficiency is the productivity, measured over a certain period
(for example, a week). It is usually given as the percentage of time that an agent is working
of his or her total scheduled working time:
Productivity =Total working time
Total time working and time available× 100%.
The total working time is defined as the total talk time plus the wrap-up time. For the
denominator it is less clear what we should take. Evidently, it consists of the time that
the agent spends on calls plus the time that the agent is available for receiving calls. But
should we count the time for breaks as well? And training? Depending on the definition
of productivity very different number can occur.
An agent has a contract for 36 hours a week. Of this time she spends 3 hours on training
and activities outside the call center, she takes breaks during 230 minutes, she is available
waiting for calls during 265 minutes, and she is handling calls (talking plus wrap-up) during
1485 minutes.
If we do not count breaks and training then the productivity is 1485/(1485+265)×100 =
85%, if we count brakes 75%, and if we count all the time she spends at work 69%.
Which definition is best depends on the situation. If agents are free to take breaks
whenever they like then it is probably better to include these in the denominator. In any
case, all performance indicator should be considered together: a high productivity is useless
if the first-time-resolution percentage is low! In fact, decreasing the first-time-resolution
percentage decreases the idle time through an increase in calls and thus “improves” the
productivity!
There are other obvious but interesting relations between the performance indicators.
If one tries to decrease the number of performance indicators then one probably ends up
considering the number of resolved calls. The disadvantage of this criterion however is that
it is hard to measure.