At its core, workforce management means having the right people at the right time, in the right place for the right cost. One of the most effective ways to make this happen is by optimizing staffing and scheduling in your call center.
Understanding and accurately calculating call center shrinkage is a foundational principle for optimizing your staffing. Let's explore what shrinkage is, how it impacts your call center, and how to forecast scheduling accordingly.
What is call center shrinkage?
Call center shrinkage is the amount of time that agents are on the clock getting paid, but are unavailable to take calls or solve customer concerns. This includes both planned activities—such as breaks, lunches, and training sessions—and unplanned absences like missed shifts.
In call centers, shrinkage is an important metric that greatly impacts the efficiency of schedule forecasting and planning. Typically, the higher your shrinkage rate, the fewer employees you have available at any given time to service your customers.
Planned shrinkage
Planned shrinkage includes predictable internal factors that can be scheduled in advance.
- Breaks and lunches
- Training sessions
- Meetings
- Approved vacations and holidays
- Special projects
- Planned system downtime
Unplanned shrinkage
Unplanned shrinkage usually consists of external factors like:
- Absenteeism
- Sick days
- Arriving late or leaving early
How does shrinkage impact a call center?
Shrinkage is an important factor in call center scheduling and can impact your operations as your workforce shrinks throughout the day. If you don’t account for shrinkage in your call center you may experience:
- Increased hold times. When fewer employees are available to handle calls or customer interactions, average hold times increase.
- Lower customer satisfaction. Longer wait times can frustrate customers, leading to high abandon rates, damaging long-term relationships and brand perception.
- Reduced employee satisfaction. As your workforce experiences shrinkage, available employees may become overwhelmed and eventually burn out due to frequent scheduling inefficiencies.
- Lost revenue. Unhappy customers and employees will eventually impact your bottom line—customers are less likely to remain loyal to your business and employees more likely to leave.
Interested in learning additional ways to combat employee dissatisfaction? Learn more about enhancing employee schedule adherence and ways to combat employee churn with better leadership practices.
How do I calculate call center shrinkage?
There are a few ways to calculate call center shrinkage. The following formula let’s you know how many agents you’ll need to effectively handle service interactions to meet your organization’s needs.
- Shrinkage = the number of agents needed to service customers / the number of agents available to take customers x 100
Other shrinkage formulas may get more granular, taking into account planned absences and unplanned absences. This can inform decisions that leaders may make to improve schedule adherence.
- Shrinkage rate (%) = (Total hours of planned absences + Total hours of unplanned absences/ Total available working hours) x 100
What is average call center shrinkage?
Average call center shrinkage rates vary depending on the industry and organization, but typically falls somewhere around 30%. In some organizations, call center shrinkage rates can reach upwards of 60%.
Although shrinkage can vary greatly, it’s crucial that your organization accurately accounts for shrinkage in schedule forecasting to meet service level agreements (SLAs) with your customers.
How do I reduce shrinkage in my call center?
Call center shrinkage can be reduced by accurately forecasting shrinkage and planning schedules accordingly. These strategies include utilizing effective workforce management software and implementing leadership practices to mitigate low employee engagement.
Choose robust forecasting software
Your call center software should include workforce management tools that offer precise forecasting. Historic data can offer insights into future performance of your call center, accurately accounting for planned and unplanned shrinkage.
Workforce tools like Aspect Workforce provide advanced forecasting algorithms to optimize call center scheduling. Labor needs are assessed based on predicted demand and can be adjusted throughout the day as requirements change. By accurately forecasting demand and accounting for employee shrinkage, you can schedule the right number of agents with the approbate skill levels for your organization’s workload.
Develop adherence monitoring practices
Employee schedule adherence is an important key performance metric (KPI) in call centers. Real-time adherence monitoring optimizes employee performance by ensuring agents stick to their schedules within specified deviation ranges.
When employees follow their schedules consistently, predicting and planning for shrinkage becomes more accurate. Implementing a transparent and comprehensive adherence monitoring process helps ensure you meet your SLAs.
Learn more about the best ways to utilize performance management tools to improve employee KPIs across your workforce.
Boost employee engagement and lower absenteeism
Engaged and satisfied employees are the backbone of a productive workforce. Developing a work culture built around employee-centric practices can reduce shrinkage and improve performance. Here are a few ways to start implementing employee engagement practices to reduce call center shrinkage:
- Offer flexible scheduling. Flexible scheduling can include employee self-service options, schedule preferences, shift swapping, and predictive time off approvals found in tools like Aspect Workforce Experience.
- Improve communication. Create a culture that values open and transparent communication, where employees feel comfortable discussing scheduling challenges and needs.
- Prioritize reward and recognition. When dealing with shrinkage and absenteeism challenges, be sure to demonstrate how much you value the employees that show up and do their best—this helps foster a positive work culture.
- Explore other workforce tools. Workforce engagement management (WEM) solutions can provide additional options to boost employee satisfaction, including gamification tools that promote healthy competition to improve morale and business performance.
For additional insights, check out how gamification can boost call center performance, including real-world results from our customer ARA Diagnostics.
Strategically schedule internal activities
It’s difficult to control unplanned shrinkage and factors outside your call center. Focus on internal factors and thoughtfully plan activities like trainings, meetings, and team events. Consider practices like staggering meetings and trainings throughout the day, week, and month to make sure your call center has appropriate coverage.
Workforce management software can give you data-driven insights into predicated non-peak hours, making it easier to schedule internal activities when fewer customers need assistance.
Drive workforce productivity with solutions that help you mitigate shrinkage in your call center, enhancing the customer experience. Learn more about how Aspect workforce platform can reduce shrinkage, enhance adherence, optimize scheduling, and improve employee self-service.
