The Key Ingredients of a Simple CX Capacity Plan

One of the most significant operating expenses for any organization is the headcount, and optimizing it is crucial. Capacity planning is a valuable skill that every aspiring or experienced frontline leader should have in their toolkit. It involves some basic math skills—addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are all you need! With that in mind, let's delve into the major variables that contribute to creating a simple yet effective capacity plan.

Workload

Workload represents the amount of work that a department needs to complete within a specific timeframe (day, week, month, quarter, or year). It consists of two components:

1. Volume: This refers to the number of work items, or "widgets," forecasted to be completed within the given timeframe. These widgets can include calls, emails, tickets, chats, DMs, and more.
2. Throughput: It represents the time taken to complete each widget or the number of widgets a person can handle within the specified timeframe.

Workload = Volume * Throughput OR Volume / Throughput per Headcount

Shrinkage

Employees scheduled to work 40 hours a week don't actually work the full 40 hours. They need to take breaks, lunches, attend meetings, training sessions, and other activities. Additionally, they are entitled to vacation days and may occasionally call in sick. These factors should be considered to calculate the "productive hours."

1. Out of Office: This refers to the percentage of employees who call in sick or take vacations within the same timeframe as the workload calculation.

2. In Office: This indicates the percentage of time employees spend on breaks, lunches, meetings, coaching, training, and other activities within the same timeframe as the workload calculation.

Supply

This value represents the current headcount of employees in the department responsible for serving clients.

Hiring: The number of employees the department plans to hire within the same timeframe as the workload calculation.

Attrition: The number of employees the department expects to lose within the same timeframe as the workload calculation.

Overtime: The number of additional hours the department anticipates gaining by requesting overtime within the same timeframe as the workload calculation.

Supply = Current Headcount + Hiring - Attrition + Overtime

Putting it all together

Over and Under = Supply * (1 - Shrinkage) - Workload  

This output provides a useful directional indicator of the department's capacity. If this is your first time creating a capacity plan, congratulations!

Conclusion

The capacity plan I've shared is a simple yet effective tool for forecasting whether the department has the right number of resources. There are several areas where this capacity plan can be further refined, including:

1. Calculating service level, average speed of answer, and first response time.
2. Converting FTEs (Full-Time Equivalents) into operating dollars.
3. Considering a blended environment of chat, emails, and tickets.

If there is interest, I can explore these topics in upcoming articles. Thank you for taking the time to read my article!