CX & Support Metrics

Occupancy Rate

Definition

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.

Also known as: agent occupancyoccupancy

How to calculate it

The formula is: (time spent handling contacts ÷ total logged-in available time) × 100. If an agent is available for 6 hours and spends 5 hours actively on contacts and wrap-up, occupancy is about 83%.

Occupancy excludes shrinkage activities like breaks, meetings, and training — it only measures time the agent was available to take contacts. That's what distinguishes it from broader utilization, which is measured against all paid time.

Why it matters

Occupancy shows how hard staffed agents are working while on the queue. Sustained high occupancy (often above ~90%) is a burnout and error-rate warning; very low occupancy means agents are sitting idle and you may be over-staffed for the volume. It's a key input to workforce management and forecasting.

Frequently asked

What is a healthy occupancy rate?

Many contact centers aim for roughly 80–90%. Consistently above that risks agent burnout and quality drops; well below it usually signals over-staffing relative to contact volume.

How is occupancy different from utilization?

Occupancy measures busy time against available (logged-in) time only; utilization measures productive time against total paid time, including breaks and training. Utilization is the broader, lower figure.

Related terms

Agent Utilization

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..

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..

Service Level

Service level is the percentage of contacts answered within a defined target time, most often expressed as an "X/Y" goal — for example, answering 80% of calls or chats within 20 seconds..

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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