Schedule adherence is an important metric for measuring the compliance of customer service agents with their scheduled work time. It tells you what percentage of the time agents are either providing customer service or are ready and available to provide customer service. However, setting a high schedule adherence target does not necessarily produce good outcomes, nor does a low adherence necessarily produce bad outcomes. In fact, a 90% schedule adherence is perfectly acceptable as a performance target. While it is important to track adherence to ensure that agents are working their scheduled hours, what is more important than the schedule adherence target or the actual adherence itself is the behavior of the service desk when there is a backlog of work in queue. A backlog of work should trigger an “all hands on deck” mentality, meaning that everyone should be working on tickets when there is a backlog of work. This is especially important when there is a call spike. Conversely, if there is less work than capacity, schedule adherence is not as important because as long as the workload is being managed and handled appropriately, a lower than average schedule adherence will not adversely affect the customer. As you set your schedule adherence target for 2023, keep in mind that a 90% target is reasonable, but it’s more important to focus on managing the workload and ensuring that all hands are on deck during busy periods. By doing so, you can ensure that your customers receive the best service possible, regardless of the adherence target. Learn more in this Metric of the Month.
