Call center staffing models and scheduling tips

Besides the key staffing and scheduling question about how many agent you need at any given time, you also need to think about what agent skills and expertise you need at specific times and types of calls. Here are a few things to consider when planning your call center staffing and schedule:

Ranking of agents

• Creating a schedule by agent rank can be very effective in reducing costs and increasing sales.
• Rank according to call completion time, calls per hour, call quality, customer satisfaction or other performance measures.

Match personality and team

• Studies have shown that a good relationship with colleagues drives motivation and performance.
• Your schedule should leverage this by teaming up the “right" people.

Multi-skilled agents and routing

• The productivity gain from giving each agent two skills could easily be 10-15%. 
• The importance of multi-skilled agents is that they form overlapping groups. For example, having one group that can handle calls type A and B while another group takes calls type C and D, can be substantially improved by adding a group that is able to handle calls type B and C (or one of the other three combinations). 

For more information about this topic, please download the "Seven Tips for more Effective Call Center Scheduling" whitepaper.