FTE Calculation for Chat

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Written by Jonty Pearce

FTE Calculation for Chat

How do I calculate the FTE requirements for chat?

I have 777 forecasted chats in a day with AHT of 312 seconds and concurrency is 3. How do I calculate the FTE if I only answer 95% of calls?

Question asked by Floyd

Use the Multi-channel Or Erlang Calculator

There is no tool that I know of that can currently do this accurately – using concurrency. The best way would be to use one of the existing tools and to divide the number of chats by a factor to include concurrency.

So if you have 3 concurrent chats during busy periods divide the chats per hour then divide the number by 2.2 – in quiet periods divide it by say 1.5

Here are links to the two tools that you may find useful:

You can’t just divide by the maximum concurrency as sometimes if concurrency is set to 3 the agent starts off with one chat then 2 and then 3 – similarly when approaching break it goes 3,2,1,0 .

The problem is compounded with the fact that AHT goes up with increased concurrency.

So you probably need to do it based on observations from your centre to get the right concurrency.

With thanks to Jonty

Author
Jonty Pearce

Jonty Pearce walked into his first call centre in 1989 and has been hooked ever since. He founded Call Centre Helper in 1989.

He is an Engineering Graduate with a background in marketing and publishing. In 2020 he won the AOP Digital Publishing Award for The Best Use of Data.

He writes and speaks on a wide variety of subjects - particularly around forecasting and scheduling. His in depth knowledge of forecasting algorithms has earned him the nickname "Mr Erlang."

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Reviewed by: Hannah Swankie