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Home - Call & Contact Center - How to Reduce Call Center Shrinkage: A Complete Guide
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You look at your daily schedule, and it says you have 50 agents planned to work. But when you look at your real-time dashboard, only 35 are actually logged in and ready to take calls. So, where did the other 15 go? This frustrating, daily disappearing act is the single biggest source of stress for call center leaders.
This difference between the team you expect and the team you actually have is called call center shrinkage. It’s the hidden problem that quietly wastes your resources, causing long wait times, tired agents, and missed targets.
This complete guide is your playbook for fighting back. We’ll explain what call center shrinkage really means and share easy-to-follow steps to track, manage, and reduce it. By the end, you’ll have the tools to make this common issue easier to handle and improve how your call center runs.
Table of Content
Call center shrinkage refers to the portion of an agent’s scheduled time when they are not available to handle customer calls.
Even if agents are on the clock, not all of that time is spent speaking to customers. Some of it is lost due to breaks, meetings, training sessions, system issues, or unscheduled absences. These lost hours are collectively known as shrinkage.
Shrinkage is typically divided into two categories:
Once you understand the factors of planned and unplanned shrinkage, call center managers can assess the total shrinkage. This knowledge allows for managing shrinkage levels and maximizing agent schedules. Ultimately, it improves productivity across the center.
Before you are able to manage shrinkage effectively, you need to first change it from a fuzzy concept to a number. You can’t manage something if you don’t measure it. The task of calculating shrinkage is crucial before you can make staff planning decisions and understand what your team is really capable of.
The standard formula used across the industry is straightforward.
Standard Shrinkage Calculation Formula
Shrinkage (%) = (Total Minutes of Unavailability / Total Paid Minutes) x 100
Where,
Example Calculation in a Real-World Scenario
Let’s put the formula into practice with a common scenario for a single-center agent. Imagine the agent is scheduled for a standard 8-hour shift.
Total Paid Minutes = 8 hours x 60 minutes/hour = 480 minutes
During this shift, their unavailable time (shrinkage) is as follows:
Now, let’s add up the total unavailable time:
Total Minutes of Unavailability = 60 + 30 + 30 + 15 + 10 = 145 minutes
Finally, we apply the shrinkage formula:
(145 Total Minutes of Unavailability / 480 Total Paid Minutes) x 100 = 30.2%
In this scenario, the agent’s shrinkage percentage for the day is 30.2%. This means that for over 30% of their paid shift, they were not available to handle an incoming call, significantly impacting the time agents are productive.
⭐ Pro Tip: Automate for Accuracy
Working out these numbers for every agent by hand is slow and prone to error. Modern workforce management (WFM) software is often part of a complete call center system. It can automatically track and calculate shrinkage in real time. This gives managers an instant and accurate view of their operational efficiency without needing spreadsheets.
To give your readers a hands-on experience, add an interactive shrinkage calculator to this page. It helps your readers right away and keeps them interested.
Call center shrinkage refers to the time when agents are scheduled to work but are not available to handle customer calls. This situation causes a chain reaction that hurts the most important Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) across your call center.
Here’s a simple explanation of how shrinkage impacts different KPI areas:
In short, high call center shrinkage causes serious problems throughout your business. It hurts your customer experience, increases costs, messes up scheduling, and wears down your most important resource — your agents.
Now that you can measure shrinkage and understand its impact, it is time to focus on the most important part: taking action. Decreasing call center shrinkage requires a strategic combination of smart technology and modern management. However, there is an equal focus on your most essential resources: your agents.
Here are eight proven strategies to lower your shrinkage rate and boost operational efficiency.
Poor forecasting is a major cause of shrinkage. When there aren’t enough agents, they get tired and may take more time off. When there are too many agents, some end up doing nothing. To fix this, stop using basic spreadsheets and start using smart tools that help you plan with real data.
How to do it: Use an AI-driven workforce management (WFM) tool that leverages previous call volumes, seasonality, and other metrics to help you forecast your labor needs with great precision. An accurate forecast is the starting point for a good schedule that provides the right number of agents to respond to demand.
📌 Tip Box: Purchase a call center software suite with workforce management functionality built in. This allows your forecasting and scheduling information to flow properly with no manual entry and no errors.
A perfect schedule is useless if agents don’t follow it. Schedule adherence—whether agents are on time for their shifts, back from breaks promptly, and sticking to their assigned tasks is a major shrinkage factor.
How to do it: Don’t wait for end-of-day reports. Use your contact center software to track adherence, occupancy, and shrinkage in real time. Managers should have dashboards that immediately flag deviations, allowing them to take corrective action within minutes, not hours.
📌Pro tip: Set up automated alerts in your WFM system. For example, a team lead could get an instant notification if an agent is more than five minutes late returning from a break.
Inflexible and rigid schedules are among the top reasons for agent dissatisfaction, burnout, and unplanned absences. Providing agents with more control over their work-life balance is a highly effective way of increasing reliability, especially for hybrid or 24/7 operations.
How to do it: Provide alternative options for scheduling. Compressed work weeks (four 10-hour days), part-time shifts, and the ability for agents to easily swap shifts. Support remote work and hybrid models; this will only add to agent satisfaction and retention.
📌Pro tip: Look for a modern WFM platform that has a mobile agent portal where an agent can view their schedules, request time off, and digitally bid on and trade shifts with colleagues to add ease and reduce administration.
A disengaged center agent will be absent and less productive. Developing a positive and supportive culture is one of the best, sustainable ways to manage shrinkage by tackling its underlying issues.
How to do it: Implement a strong workforce engagement program. Use gamification (leaderboards, points, badges) to make meeting KPIs more fun. Run recognition programs to celebrate top performers. Most importantly, provide clear paths for career development to show agents they have a future with your company.
📌Pro tip: Launch a “Top Performer of the Week” program that rewards agents with the best schedule adherence or CSAT scores. Public recognition can be a powerful motivator.
Unplanned absenteeism is one of the most disruptive forms of external shrinkage. To control it, you need to understand it.
How to do it: Use your WFM reports to track and analyze absenteeism patterns. Is it higher on certain days of the week or within specific teams? This data helps you identify root causes, like burnout or team-specific issues. Support this with clear, fair, and consistently enforced leave policies.
📌Pro tip: Instead of being purely punitive, hold supportive “return-to-work” interviews after an unplanned absence to understand the reason and offer help if needed.
Internal shrinkage is necessary, but it’s often bloated and inefficient. Every minute an agent spends in an unproductive meeting is a minute they aren’t handling customer interactions.
How to do it: Keep non-call activities productive and concise.
📌 Pro tip: Adopt the “Amazon rule” for meetings: if two pizzas can’t feed the entire group, you have too many people in the meeting. Keep them small and focused.
Ultimately, the goal should be to minimize loss from shrinkage. Simplifying and automating low-value, high-volume tasks allows your human agents to focus on high-value tasks, especially those tasks that require human judgment.
How to do it: Use smart self-service tools. Use a conversational AI-powered chatbot or a virtual agent to handle common inquiries like “What’s my order status?” or “How do I reset my password?” A well-designed IVR can also deflect calls by guiding users to self-service portals. This ensures your customers get instant answers, even if you are short-staffed.
📌 Pro tip: Review your call data; look at the top 3-5 reasons why customers call. If you identify simple, repetitive tasks, these can totally be automated with an AI chatbot.
Shrinkage isn’t just about absence. It’s also about inefficiency. An agent who lacks confidence or knowledge will take longer on calls, require more help, and feel more stressed. All of these factors can lead to burnout and unexpected time off.
How to do it: Move from only reviewing performance after the fact to coaching agents as issues happen. Use call monitoring and voice analysis tools to spot where agents need help. Give focused, supportive coaching aimed at improving skills and confidence instead of just pointing out mistakes. This lowers call times and boosts agent morale at the same time.
📌 Pro tip: Create a mentorship program where experienced agents are paired with newer or developing team members. This peer support builds skills and strengthens team culture, reducing the need for formal training sessions.
Shrinkage isn’t just a Workforce Management (WFM) issue. It’s a shared responsibility. When ownership is clearly defined across the right teams, you move from reacting to shrinkage problems to proactively managing them. This partnership involves three key groups: WFM, Call Center Managers & Team Leaders, and Agents.
The WFM team owns the strategic planning and data analysis. They are responsible for creating the master plan and providing the data that makes informed decisions possible.
Key Responsibilities:
In short, they own the plan and the data.
Managers and team leads own the real-time execution of the plan. They are on the front lines, responsible for the day-to-day adherence and management of their teams.
In short, they own the execution and the people.
Every center agent has personal ownership over their own adherence and contribution to the team’s success. Their actions directly impact the real-time shrinkage numbers.
In short, they own their performance and communication.
When all three groups work in partnership, you stop simply reacting to shrinkage and start proactively managing it.
Mastering call center shrinkage is more than just tracking minutes; it’s about unlocking your team’s true potential. Success comes from a strong partnership between smart planners, attentive managers, and responsible agents. The goal isn’t just to stick to schedules but to give your team flexibility, helpful automation, and a culture that respects their time.
By focusing on the real causes instead of just the symptoms, you don’t just reduce a number. You build a strong, efficient, and people-focused operation that turns a big challenge into a real advantage.
The average shrinkage in a call center typically ranges between 30% to 35%. This accounts for time lost to breaks, meetings, training, and absenteeism.
The shrinkage formula in WFM is:
Shrinkage (%) = (Total Time Not Available / Total Time Scheduled) x 100
Occupancy measures the percentage of time agents spend handling calls versus being idle. While Shrinkage represents the percentage of time agents are paid but not available to take calls, like breaks or training.
The standard shrinkage rate in call centers is usually around 30% to 35%, accounting for breaks, training, meetings, and other non-productive time.