What a 1% staffing error costs a 200-agent contact center

Labor is the biggest cost to running a contact center

Labor makes up 68% to 77% of contact center operating cost. In a 200-agent center, a forecast error at 1% over staffing needs costs about $89,540 a year in wages for agents you don’t need. If it runs 1% low, you pay in overtime and missed service levels instead.

Forecasting has also gotten harder. Automation took the simple contacts, so the work that’s left runs longer and varies more. Forecasts built on last year’s handle time miss in both directions.

In this session, Dave Toliver opens with the math behind staffing errors. Then Chad Langworthy builds a forecast, generates a schedule, and checks adherence live in SuccessKPI. We’ll finish with your questions.

What you’ll see

• Building a short-term forecast and checking its error against your own history before you schedule from it
• Generating schedules from a published forecast, accounting for queues, skills, and languages
• Tracking adherence in real time, so supervisors see who’s off schedule while it still matters
• Agents requesting time off and getting an answer from your policy, without a planner stepping in
• Adherence and quality scores on one dashboard, with no integration to buy

Who should attend 
This session is for workforce planners, contact center operations leaders, and CX executives who answer for labor cost. It’s especially useful if your plan lives in spreadsheets today, or if you’re rebuilding your planning setup in the next year.