What each number is
Handle time, each component's share and the time outside the conversation are arithmetic on your inputs. Every lever share is an assumption, labelled as a heuristic until you replace it. The handle time after a lever and the agent hours it frees are conditional forecasts under those shares. Agent hours are capacity; they become cash only through an action you choose.
Formulas
Talk + hold + after-call work + transfer + knowledge search + system time
Each component in seconds a contact.
Handle time − talk time
A fact about where the seconds go. Whether any of it can come out depends on the initiative and the operation.
Seconds saved = the sum over its targets of component × share removed
Each lever alone, against today's handle time.
Each component × the product over selected levers of (1 − share removed)
Two levers on the same component each remove their share of what the other leaves, so no second is counted twice and no component goes below zero.
Seconds saved × contacts a month × 12 ÷ 3,600
Capacity. The Staffing Calculator turns handle time into agents at your service level.
Rules and bands
Opening share, editable, counted only when selected.
Opening share, editable, counted only when selected.
Opening share, editable, counted only when selected.
Opening share, editable, counted only when selected.
The levers and their opening shares. No published study gives these shares for an operation; each is a planning heuristic to be replaced with a vendor's evidence or your own pilot.
Every constant and where it comes from
After-call work removed by automatic call summaries and disposition.
Knowledge search time removed when answers are surfaced during the contact.
Hold time removed when agents stop placing customers on hold to look things up.
System and admin time removed by bringing the agent's applications into one desktop.
Hold time removed when fewer holds wait on application switching.
Transfer time removed when contacts reach the right agent first.
Talk time removed when the first agent reached can resolve the contact.
Worked example
Computed by the tool's own engine at its default inputs, so this page and the calculator always agree.
Components: talk 210s, hold 55s, after-call work 60s, transfer 15s, search 30s, system 25s
Contacts per month: 20,000
Levers: all four selected at their opening shares
210 + 55 + 60 + 15 + 30 + 25 = 395s, of which 185s (47%) is outside the conversation
60s × 50% = 30s a contact
30s × 40% + 55s × 15% = 20.3s a contact
25s × 50% + 55s × 10% = 18s a contact
15s × 50% + 210s × 5% = 18s a contact
55 × (1 − 15%) × (1 − 10%) = 42.1s, 12.9s removed, less than the 13.8s the two shares would add to
395s falls to 309.6s, 85.4s a contact (21.6%)
85.4 × 20,000 × 12 ÷ 3,600 = 5,695 hours of capacity
What this tool cannot tell you
- Components are averages. Handle time varies by contact type, agent tenure and time of day; decompose by queue where your data allows.
- The lever shares are heuristics. A share you cannot evidence from a pilot or a reference site is a hypothesis to test.
- Shorter handle time can move other measures. Watch repeat contacts and quality when talk or hold time falls.
- Agent hours are capacity. They reduce cost only through an action such as fewer hires, less overtime or absorbed growth.