There are a number of different terms in the industry to identify elements of how well the staff sticks to the planned schedules. Two that come to mind are schedule “conformance” vs. schedule “adherence.” Vendors and call centers sometimes use the same word but mean something quite different.
However, there are essentially three things we care about regardless of what word you use to describe them:
· Did the agent deliver a day's work for a day's pay? If the agent is scheduled to be at work and available for 7.5 hours today, did the agent actually log in for that 7.5 hours? The agent might log in 30 minutes early and leave 30 minutes early and would still have delivered 7.5 hours. This is the primary concern of payroll. This is usually referred to as schedule conformance.
· Did the agent work the specific details of the schedule? This focuses on the details of the shift and the variance of start, end, and break times. This is focused on having the right number of people available at the right times to meet the customer demand and deliver on the speed of answer goals. This is usually referred to as schedule adherence.
· What percentage of the day did the agent make themselves available to perform customer-affecting activities? This includes not just the time available for incoming calls but other times they might have been doing off-phone work and is sometimes referred to as "utilization." This is often critical in organizations that bill their services back to other departments or clients, but can just be an element of budget planning as well.
Are you measuring all of these? Each one is important in its own way and gives the center useful data to determine the best staffing model and realistic assumptions about shrinkage and non-call work elements, no matter what you call it.
