Key Data points to consider while setting up a call center in India

This article is intended for all those business users who are intending to set up a Contact Center and want to make objective decisions based on data. The data presented here is based on our experience of serving 150+ customers on our Cloud based Virtual Contact Center in India - http://cloudagent.in 

If you are looking at factors to consider on whether you need a Call Center at all in the first place, you can read our blog - http://blog.cloudagent.in/2013/02/does-your-business-need-contact-center.html

By the time you finish reading this article, you should be able to calculate and decide on the number of agents required or number of PRI lines required or number of calls you can handle using a certain number of agents etc.

Based on our observation we have given averages across verticals ( We are lucky to be serving customers across 20+ verticals, for case studies - http://ozonetel.com/casestudies.php). The key parameters that have been considered are efficiency of handling calls (% answered calls), Pickup times, Total handling time per day of an agent , wrapup times etc.

For an Inbound Contact Center, our observations are as given below: 

Wrap up Time is the time agent spends after the call on writing additional information etc about the call.

Call Handling time is Agents Talk Time + Wrap Up Time .

The conclusions you can draw based on this data is that a business requires its agents to work on its process as well along with taking the calls - hence agent utilization will not be more than 30-40% max. for an inbound contact center. So handling customer calls is only part of the contact center executives job. It is very important that you know what percentage of your agents time will go attending calls and what % is required to work in the process updating customer data - be it orders, deliveries or leads.

Based on this data, you should be able to estimate what are your call center needs. For example, if you need to receive 1500 calls with a success rate of 90% ( answer 90% of 1500 calls -1350), with an average duration of 3 minutes per call, agent utilization rates of 40% and total agent login time of 480 mins ( 8 hours) - You will need 21 agents approximately. With the same data but utilization of only 30%  - you will need 28 agents.  
To ensure that you can calculate your call center needs, we have given here a basic calculator which will tell you the number of agents required or number of calls you can handle for a given set of agents etc. You can access this calculator here - http://ozonetel.com/app/calculator.php

Please do note that this is a basic calculator and does not consider queue times  etc. If you are a real pro, then simply google for a Erlang calculator and use one of the numerous calculators given on the web. In our next article, we will definitely provide our version of an advanced calculator.