CX & Support Metrics

Agent Utilization

Definition

Agent utilization is the percentage of an agent's paid time spent on productive, support-related work — handling contacts and related tasks — versus total time on the clock.

Also known as: utilization rateproductivity rate

How to calculate it

A common formula is: (time spent on productive work ÷ total paid/scheduled time) × 100. If an agent works an 8-hour shift and spends 6 hours on contacts and support tasks, utilization is 75%.

Definitions vary — some organizations count only live contact handling, others include after-call work, training, and coaching. Utilization is related to but broader than occupancy, which looks only at logged-in time actively spent on contacts.

Why it matters

Utilization is a workforce-efficiency and staffing metric. Too low suggests over-staffing or idle time; too high signals burnout risk and leaves no room for coaching or breaks. The goal is a sustainable band — high enough to be efficient, low enough that quality and agent wellbeing hold.

Frequently asked

What is the difference between utilization and occupancy?

Utilization measures productive time against all paid time (including breaks, training, and downtime); occupancy measures active contact time against logged-in, available time. Occupancy is usually the higher of the two.

What is a good agent utilization rate?

Many teams target roughly 65–85%, leaving deliberate slack for breaks, training, and demand variability. Pushing utilization too high tends to raise attrition and hurt quality.

Related terms

Occupancy Rate

Occupancy rate is the percentage of an agent's logged-in, available time that is actually spent handling contacts — including talk, chat, and after-contact work — versus waiting for the next contact..

Shrinkage

Shrinkage is a workforce management metric that captures the percentage of paid agent time not spent handling customer contacts — including breaks, meetings, training, absenteeism, and other non-productive activities..

Schedule Adherence

Schedule adherence is a workforce management metric that measures how closely agents follow their assigned schedules — being available for work (on calls, chats, or tickets) during the times they're scheduled to be..

Average Handle Time (AHT)

Average Handle Time (AHT) is the average total time an agent spends handling a single customer interaction, including talk or chat time, hold time, and after-contact work..

Forecast Accuracy

Forecast accuracy measures how close a support team's predicted contact volume (or workload) was to the volume that actually arrived, expressed as a percentage that shows how reliable the forecast was..

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