Support Staffing Calculator
How many support agents a ticket volume needs — from tickets a day, the time each takes, the hours in a shift, the occupancy an agent can sustain and the shrinkage that leave and training take — with tickets per agent and the cost.
Multiply tickets by handle time and you have the work; divide by what an agent can actually deliver in a shift — shift hours, times the share of the shift spent on tickets rather than waiting, times the share of days they are actually there — and you have the agents.
How the support staffing calculator works
Multiply tickets by handle time and you have the work; divide by what an agent can actually deliver in a shift — shift hours, times the share of the shift spent on tickets rather than waiting, times the share of days they are actually there — and you have the agents. Occupancy above 85% burns people out and lengthens queues; shrinkage of 25 to 35% is normal once leave, breaks and training are counted.
Formula: work hours = tickets × handle minutes / 60; agents = ⌈work / (shift hours × occupancy × (1 − shrinkage))⌉
Worked examples
| Inputs | Agents required | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 320 tickets a day, nine minutes each | 10 | ten agents |
| Faster handling | 7 | seven agents |
| Pushing occupancy | 9 | fewer agents, burning out |
FAQFrequently asked questions
What is occupancy?
The share of an agent's logged-in time spent handling tickets rather than waiting for one. Eighty per cent is a sustainable target; above 85 to 90 queues grow and people leave.
What is shrinkage?
Paid time not available for tickets: leave, sickness, breaks, meetings, training. Twenty-five to thirty-five per cent is normal, and leaving it out understaffs the desk by a third.
Why round up?
Because a fraction of an agent cannot answer a ticket, and the rounding is the desk's only buffer for a busy day.
What about peaks within the day?
This is the average. If tickets bunch in the morning, staff the peak hours higher and the quiet ones lower; an Erlang calculation sets the per-interval figure for live channels.
How do I reduce the headcount?
Cut handle time with better tooling and macros, deflect repeat questions to help articles, and fix the product defects that generate tickets. Each minute off handle time is about a tenth of the desk.
Where these figures come from
- APICS / ASCM — inventory management terminology — the turnover, safety stock and reorder point definitions used here
- US Federal Trade Commission — the US consumer protection regulator
Last checked: September 2026. These are standard retail and inventory-management definitions.