1. Forecast down to appropriate intervals:

A particular number of agents is needed at different times of day to handle typical call volumes. This number is termed as “Base staff” and varies by time of day or day of the week. It is said to be a good practice to forecast down to about 15- or 30-minute intervals and to take into account variations in both volume and average handling time. This would help reduce call center shrinkage to a large extent.

2. Employ WFM application:

A WFM application with schedule adherence allows you to measure call center shrinkage at a granular employee level. It has the ability to track the exact time spent in planned and unplanned shrinkage. It can help manage shrinkage in a suitable manner in the season based environment. Moreover, it enables you to calculate the impact of absenteeism, late individuals etc on the service that you deliver to your customers.

 

3. Avoid flat lining or rounding off the shrinkage:

You should avoid flat lining the call center shrinkage across the year. Instead, consider analyzing the trends related to shrinkage. The reason being, categories such as sickness, training etc cannot always be the same every week or month of the year. Also, you need to make sure that you use decimal points and do not round off the figures in the respective calculations. This is because even 0.1% has the potential of adding up to a cost over the course of a year.

 

4. Consider individual calculations for different departments:

In a multi-department call center, shrinkage should be calculated individually rather than for the centre as a whole. This leads a better and more efficacious calculation.

5. Determine strategies that would reduce shrinkage for your business:

Based on the trends related to call center shrinkage and further calculations, base staff can be determined so as to facilitate a productive work schedule. Consider analyzing the data gleaned from monitoring the factors affecting shrinkage and discussing it with the entire team. Thereafter, you can determine and employ strategies that would work best to reduce shrinkage in your business