Industry Standard Forecasting

[musze]

I know this is a broad question that depends on many variables but I hoping someone can give me a high level analysis, answer or point to some research that has been done on this topic:

I am looking for a general ratio in call center operations of how many forecasters are needed to be higered per agent or per skill group. Is there a call center industry standard for, let's say 2 forecasters per 1000 agents in a company. I do realize that there are many different factors i.e. enviorment, type of business, total number of skill groups and workforemanagment tool used. But if someone can point me to some analysis or knows an industry standard or what the norm is. Do you usually see 1 forecaster for 100-200 agents? Do you usually see 1 forecaster per 1000 agents? Or if you can post how your company does this. A study would be great.....Thanks in advance.

[Karsten Fuhrmann]

Hello,

I don't see a relation between "number of forecasters needed" and "number of agents". For me, it depends on the number of skills, queues etc. you need to forecast. If 10'000 agents are just handling one skill, you probably don't even need 1 forecaster full-time.

We're doing forecasts as a very small part of our overall job. 4 people are taking care of more than 30 skills (and for more than 300 agents) - and they spent less than 10% for this task.

[ForceGuy]

I don't see forecasting as a per agent ratio either...having a given amount of schedulers/agent can make sense depending on your setup, but for forecasters it depends mostly on the complexity of your forecast and your org setup. If you're expecting a number of marketing initiatives and are trying to determine call in rates for them then your forecaster(s) will likely be quite busy....if your business is relatively normal and not being hit via various campaigns/other externalities then you really shouldn't need more than 1 individual dedicated to it. Also, if you're re-forecasting in real-time then you may need an additional individual spending 20%-30% of their time in that function.

[musze]

Thanks Karsten and Forceguy, do any of you know where I might be able to find some analysis on this or some type of study?

[ForceGuy]

Hi musze, no study that I know of...there are a few consulting groups out there that do this type of work/analysis...depending on how much you want to invest/how important it is to you, you might want to hire a consultant to do a review...on the other hand might be worth the investment to just hire in a talented forecaster...hope this helps...

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