I am trying to understand how many agents we need for a given day given current volumes, service level, and average handling time. The basic formula for monitoring the number of agents needed is below:

Basic Response Time Formula:

Volume / (RT / AHT) = # of Agents Required

• RT = Response Time (SLA)

  • This is your target response time

• AHT = Average Handle Time

  • AHT includes any time spent on holds, delays, or follow-up actions to fulfill the customer's needs. So, we would measure AHT by adding up the total time it took to resolve each case, starting from when it was first opened.

Time Period: 30 Minute Interval

Volume: = 100 Emails

Response Time = 240 Minutes (4 hours)

AHT = 480 Minutes (8 Hours)

Agents required = 200 Agents Require

What I don't like about this formula is that AHT includes all the time the agent waited for more information from the client or had to put it on hold because they needed more information from a 3rd party. To me, the AHT should just be the time agent actually spent working the ticket, which to me would be the amount of time in the open. All other statuses in Zendesk indicate that more information is needed from somebody other than the agent. To me that means that the agent is not working.

I am trying to understand how others are handling workforce management staffing requirements for the email channel.

Another area that I want to understand better is if Zendesk can model the ticket volume in half-hour increments. The way I think about ticket volume is when a ticket is created or when a ticket is in the status open. Both of these criteria indicate to me that the ticket is apart of the user's queue of tickets that need to be worked on.

Overall, I am outlining these thoughts to see how others are modeling workforce staffing requirements.