How to Calculate Shrinkage in Call Center
One of the important key metrics in the call center is “Shrinkage”. Shrinkage denotes absenteeism in the call center. A higher shrinkage can lead to revenue loss, a negative impact on other call center metrics, and call center efficiency.
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| How to Calculate Shrinkage in a Call Center |
Although every call center aims for 0% shrinkage, as per the process there could be some threshold shrinkage.
In this blog today, we will discuss everything about call center Shrinkage.
Agenda of Blog:
Let us discuss (in brief) the below points to understand call center shrinkage in detail:
- What is Shrinkage?
- Types of Shrinkage?
- Reason for Shrinkage?
- How to control Shrinkage?
- How to Calculate Shrinkage in Call Center
What is Shrinkage?
Shrinkage is a call center metric that denotes the absenteeism of agents who were rostered (Paid FTEs ) to handle the calls but were not available due to any reason in a particular shift, day, or month.
Every call Center schedules a certain number of agents to handle calls in a specific shift, and if the agents do not turn up in the required shift or days then this is termed as shrinkage.
Type of Shrinkage:
Shrinkage can be categorized into 2 types:
1. Planned Shrinkage:
When the agent pre-informs to the team leader about his absentees in advance (with required approval) then this shrinkage is counted under “Planned Shrinkage”.
Example: Planned Holidays, Medical Treatment, Family Functions, etc.
2. Unplanned Shrinkage:
The Shrinkage due to emergency leaves or no prior information in to the supervisor is counted under “Unplanned Shrinkage”.
Example: Unplanned Leaves, Same-day intimation, etc.
Also Read: How to Calculate manpower in Call Center ?
Reason for Shrinkage:
There could be various reasons for Shrinkage (Planned /Unplanned). Some common reasons are outlined below:
- Planned Holidays
- Medical Exigencies
- Family Functions
- Personal Issues
How to control Shrinkage?
Controlling Shrinkage requires people management skills. Below are some proven tips to control shrinkage.
- Proper Roster Planning
- Holding unnecessary leaves
- Shift End Huddle for next day roster.
- Analyze the historical Trend
- Focus and track repeat outliers.
How to Calculate Shrinkage in Call Center ?
Now let’s understand how to calculate Shrinkage in Call Center. As mentioned above the shrinkage metrics indicate the difference between the available agents and rostered agents to take the call.
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| How to Calculate Shrinkage in a Call Center |
The simple formula to calculate the Overall shrinkage is:
(Planned Shrinkage + Unplanned Shrinkage)
Formula to Calculate Planned Shrinkage:
(Total Number of leaves + Total number of Week-Offs)/ Total Headcount
Formula to Calculate Unplanned Shrinkage:
(Total Number Rostered Agents – Total number of Available agents)/ Total Number of Rostered Agents
Let’s understand it with an example for a better explanation:
Suppose there are 30 team members in a team. Below is the attendance schedule grid of these team members for a specific day:
| Agent Schedule | Count |
|---|---|
| Total Headcount | 30 |
| Agents on Leaves | 5 |
| Agents on Week-Offs | 5 |
| Total Rostered Agents | 20 |
| Total Available Agents | 17 |
| Absent Agent | 3 |
In the grid above and as per the calculation we shared , below is the calculation of Shrinkage:
Planned shrinkage:
(Total Number of leaves + Total number of Week-Offs)/ Total Headcount
After Putting the grid number in to the formula:
(5 + 5)/30
10/30 =.33
Planned Shrinkage is 33%
Unplanned shrinkage:
(Total Number Rostered Agents – Total number of Available agents)/ Total Number of Rostered Agents
After Putting the grid number into the formula:
(20-17)/20
3/20 = 0.15
Planned Shrinkage is 15%
Now to calculate the overall Shrinkage we need to add both
Planned Shrinkage + Unplanned Shrinkage
i.e. 33%+ 15%
Overall Shrinkage is 39%
That’s how you calculate the Shrinkage of the process.
One question that arises many times is:
What is idle Shrinkage?
The idle shrinkage depends on the process type i.e. Domestic or International Process
In the Domestic process, an agent gets 1 week off which means 14% Planned Shrinkage, and considering 2 % of Leave and 8% of Unplanned Shrinkage
So the idle shrinkage for a Domestic process should be < 24%.
Likewise, the idle shrinkage for International processes should not exceed 35%
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So Friend’s this is all about the Shrinkage Metrics in Call Center and I hope after reading this blog all your doubts related to Shrinkage Metrics will be cleared.
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