Agent utilization rate helps you answer one operational question: does the number of customer service agents match the volume of incoming tickets? Without it, a team can look busy while some agents are overloaded and others wait for their next contact.
The Gallup State of the Global Workplace 2026 report found that 40% of employees worldwide experienced stress during a lot of the previous day. In customer service teams, a workload that stays at the upper limit is one source of stress you can measure through utilization rate.
This article explains what agent utilization rate is, why it matters, what affects it, how to calculate it, what target is reasonable, and how to improve it.
What Is Agent Utilization Rate?
Agent utilization rate is the percentage of an agent’s paid working hours spent handling customers by phone, chat, or email, including the work that follows each contact. If an agent’s utilization rate is 70%, then 70% of the shift goes to serving customers and the other 30% goes to meetings, training, or waiting for contacts.
Customer service supervisors and managers use this metric to plan headcount, build schedules, and monitor workload. You can calculate it per agent, per team, or per hourly interval.
Agent Utilization Rate vs Occupancy Rate
Utilization rate compares handling time with all paid working hours, while occupancy rate compares it only with the time an agent is logged in and ready to take contacts. As a result, the same agent’s occupancy rate is almost always higher than their utilization rate.
| Aspect | Utilization rate | Occupancy rate |
|---|---|---|
| Denominator | Paid working hours | Available time (logged in and ready) |
| Meeting and training time | Included in the denominator | Excluded from the denominator |
| Question it answers | How much of the paid working time goes to customers | How busy the agent is while ready to serve |
| Most useful for | Headcount and cost planning | Monitoring workload during service hours |
For example, an agent handles customers for 330 minutes of a 480-minute shift and spends 90 minutes of that shift in meetings and training. The utilization rate is 68.75%, while the occupancy rate is 330 divided by 390 minutes of available time, or 84.6%.
Before you compare your numbers with another team or an industry report, make sure both use the same formula. KPI references and software dashboards do not always use the same denominator, so 80% in one report is not necessarily equal to 80% in another.
Why Agent Utilization Rate Matters
Agent utilization rate matters because it shows whether your customer service team’s capacity is being used in a balanced way. A rate that stays too high means agents work with no spare time, while a rate that stays too low means you are paying for idle capacity.
- It is the basis for headcount planning. With utilization rate, you can calculate how many agents a given ticket volume needs instead of guessing.
- It helps prevent agent burnout. Agents who work at the upper limit for long periods are more likely to fall sick, miss work, or resign. Recruiting and training a replacement usually costs more than adding a shift.
- It protects service quality and SLAs. Without spare time, every volume spike turns into a queue, rushed answers, and customers who contact you again about the same issue.
- It cuts the cost of idle capacity. A consistently low rate shows that agent numbers exceed volume at certain hours, while salaries keep running.
- It reveals uneven workloads. Utilization rate per agent shows who is overloaded and who rarely receives tickets, even when the team average looks normal.
Factors That Affect Agent Utilization Rate
Agent utilization rate depends on how many tickets arrive and when, how agent schedules are built, and how quickly agents can resolve each contact. Check the six factors below before you decide whether your team’s number is too high or too low.
1. Ticket Volume and Arrival Patterns
Ticket volume is rarely even throughout the day, because spikes tend to follow promotions, service outages, or the lunch hour. A daily utilization rate can look normal while agents are swamped at peak hours and idle in quiet ones.
2. Service Channel
A chat agent can handle more than one conversation at a time, while a phone agent can only take one call. That is why chat and phone teams should have different targets.
3. Ticket Complexity
Simple tickets such as order status checks take minutes, while technical complaints need research and coordination with other teams. Advanced technical teams naturally show different numbers because part of their work is not recorded as direct contact.
4. Work Schedules and Shrinkage
Shrinkage is the share of paid working hours not available for serving customers, such as meetings, training, and leave. The higher the shrinkage, the lower the ceiling on the utilization rate your team can reach.
5. Agent Skills and Experience
New agents take longer to find answers and often ask senior colleagues for help. During onboarding, their numbers are naturally lower and should not be compared directly with those of experienced agents.
6. Tools and Status Tracking
A ticketing system that assigns tickets automatically spreads the workload more evenly than one that lets agents pick their own tickets. Utilization data also depends on recorded agent statuses, so unrecorded after-call work makes the rate look lower than it really is.
How to Calculate Agent Utilization Rate
Agent utilization rate is calculated by dividing total customer handling time by the agent’s total paid working hours, then multiplying the result by 100%. The formula works for a single agent or a whole team over the same period.
Agent Utilization Rate Formula
Agent utilization rate = (handling time ÷ paid working hours) × 100%
In Indonesia, paid working hours generally follow Article 21(2) of Government Regulation No. 35 of 2021 (PP 35/2021), which sets 40 hours a week. That total breaks down into 8 hours a day on a 5-day week or 7 hours a day on a 6-day week.
What Time Counts in the Formula
Every minute of a shift falls into one of these groups:
- Handling time, which is the time an agent spends talking on the phone or replying to chats and emails, including while the customer is on hold. This time goes into the numerator.
- After-call work (ACW), which is the work that follows a contact, such as logging the conversation, updating the ticket status, and passing the case to another team. This time also goes into the numerator.
- Idle time, which is the time an agent is logged in and ready but has no incoming contact. This time only goes into the denominator.
- Non-service time, such as meetings, training, and coaching during working hours. This time also only goes into the denominator.
So the numerator is handling time plus ACW, and the denominator is all paid working hours. Break time counts in neither, because breaks between working periods are not counted as working hours.
Agent Utilization Rate Calculation Example
An agent works an 8-hour shift, or 480 minutes. The agent spends 270 minutes on handling time and 60 minutes on ACW, and the rest of the shift goes to meetings, training, and idle time.
This agent’s utilization rate is (270 + 60) divided by 480, multiplied by 100%, or 68.75%. For a team, add up every agent’s handling time and divide by their total paid working hours, as shown in the table below.
| Agent | Handling time (handling time + ACW) | Paid working hours | Utilization rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agent A | 420 minutes | 480 minutes | 87.5% |
| Agent B | 330 minutes | 480 minutes | 68.8% |
| Agent C | 260 minutes | 480 minutes | 54.2% |
| Agent D | 350 minutes | 480 minutes | 72.9% |
| Team | 1,360 minutes | 1,920 minutes | 70.8% |
The team average of 70.8% looks healthy, yet Agent A carries almost twice Agent C’s workload during the same hours. That is why you should read utilization rate per agent and per peak hour, not stop at the team average.
A gap this large usually comes from uneven ticket assignment, different skill levels, or agent statuses that were not recorded correctly.
Read also: Average Handling Time (AHT): Definition, Components, and How to Improve It
What Is a Good Agent Utilization Rate?
No single number is ideal for every team, because the right target depends on the channel, ticket complexity, and the share of working hours spent on training. As a reference point, Outsource Accelerator cites a 2024 ContactBabel guide that puts median utilization near 65% for inbound teams and 72% for blended teams in the UK.
Use that median as a starting point, then adjust it for the factors above and your own team’s data. A chat team handling simple tickets can usually aim higher than a phone team handling technical complaints.
Monitor the target alongside response time, your SLA customer service commitments, and customer satisfaction scores. A utilization rate that rises while SLAs start slipping is a sign that the target is too high.
How to Improve Agent Utilization Rate
Improving agent utilization rate means cutting wasted agent time without pushing the workload past a reasonable limit. You can start the six steps below with data already in your ticketing and phone systems.
1. Build Schedules Around Volume Patterns
Pull ticket counts per hour and per day for at least the last three months. Use that pattern to add agents at peak hours and move meetings or training to quiet hours.
2. Distribute Tickets Evenly
Set your ticketing system to assign tickets based on agent workload and skills, not on who grabs them first. This closes gaps like the one between Agent A and Agent C in the table above.
3. Reduce Repetitive Questions
Questions such as order status or password resets can be answered through a knowledge base, reply templates, or an AI agent. Agents can then spend their time on cases that need human judgment.
4. Train Agents on the Slowest Ticket Categories
Compare handling time by ticket category to find the topics that slow agents down the most. Focus training and reference material on those topics, especially for new agents.
5. Make Sure Agent Statuses Are Recorded Accurately
Set clear status codes, such as handling, ACW, meeting, training, and break. Without consistent codes, you cannot compare utilization rate across agents or across months.
6. Calculate Headcount with a Realistic Target
Say your team receives 400 tickets a day with an average handling time of 8 minutes, for a total of 3,200 minutes of handling time. With a 70% utilization target and a 480-minute shift, you need 3,200 divided by (0.7 × 480), or 9.5 agents, rounded up to 10.
If the same workload is covered by only 8 agents, utilization rises to about 83% before leave or volume spikes are taken into account. Add a buffer for leave, sick days, and peak seasons based on your team’s attendance records.
Conclusion
Agent utilization rate shows how much of an agent’s paid working time goes to serving customers. The number is most useful when you calculate it per agent, read it alongside SLAs and customer satisfaction, and keep it clearly separate from occupancy rate.
Start by standardizing agent status codes in your system, then calculate utilization rate per agent for the past month. From there, set a target that fits your team’s channels and volume patterns.
Optimize Your Customer Service
Schedule a demo of Adaptist Prose and see how an integrated ticketing system helps bring tickets, conversations, and customer data together in a single dashboard. With a more structured workflow, teams can respond faster, reduce operational burden, and maintain consistent service quality as the business grows.
FAQ
No. Utilization rate only measures the share of time spent on customers, while productivity also looks at outcomes such as tickets resolved, first contact resolution, and customer satisfaction.
Check it by hourly interval every day to manage operational schedules. For headcount and budget planning, use weekly or monthly averages.
In theory, yes, but that would mean agents have no time for meetings, training, or waiting for the next contact. Under those conditions, every volume spike turns straight into a queue.
Count handling time as the period during which the agent handles at least one chat, not the sum of every chat’s duration. If you add up the duration of every chat, utilization rate can exceed 100% and can no longer be compared with phone agents.
Average handling time measures the average length of one contact, while utilization rate measures the share of working hours spent on all contacts. A lower AHT can reduce utilization rate if ticket volume does not rise with it.
