• Login
  • Status
  • Support
  • Partners
  • Pricing
  • Careers
  • ENLanguages
    • English
    • Deutsch
    • Français
    • 日本
    • 简体中文
    • العربية
    • 한국
    • Español
Customer Experience (CX) AI Platform
  • Customer Experience (CX) AI Platform×
  • Platform

      CXone Mpower Platform

      • Platform Overview

        Complete AI platform for customer service automation

      • Purpose-built AI for CX

        Powering smarter CX with AI-driven insights and automation.

      • Cloud Architecture

        Innovative cloud-native foundation to rapidly scale extraordinary CX

      • Voice as a Service (VaaS)

        Crystal-clear, scalable voice interactions for effortless interactions

      • Dashboards & Reporting

        Gain a full operational picture of your contact center, with enhanced visualization of real-time and historical insights

      • Integrations

        Seamlessly connect your business systems with our platform

      • Trust & Compliance

        Securing your trust with every interaction

      Discover the full value of AI in customer service

      Understand the benefits and cost savings you can achieve by embracing AI, from automation to augmentation.

      Calculate your savings

    • Products
      • Explore all Products

      • Capabilities

      • Workflow Orchestration

        Workflow Orchestration

        Evolve from interaction management to workflow orchestration across the entire organization.

        Learn more

        • Omnichannel Routing

          Reduce wait times and boost conversions with smart customer-agent matching.

        • Proactive Engagement

          Generate more revenue, minimize hang-ups, and proactively connect to reduce friction.

        • AI Orchestrator

          Unify and optimize every customer service workflow from intent to fulfillment.

        • Agent Desktop Workspace

          Connect front and back office teams with data, conversations, and workflows together in one place.

      • Workforce Augmentation

        Workforce Augmentation

        Move beyond tools to empower employees with real-time, actionable intelligence that elevates performance.

        Learn more

        • Specialized AI Copilots

          Elevate human performance with specialized AI copilots for every role.

        • Workforce Engagement Management

          Elevate employees, adapt to flexible work, and meet expectations - without compromise.

        • Automated Summary

          Instantly summarize interactions to accelerate resolution times and efficiency.

        • Voice of the Customer

          Unlock customer insights to enhance experiences, drive loyalty, and boost business growth.

        • Interaction Analytics

          Gain AI-powered insights from 100% of interactions to drive continuous improvement.

      • Service Automation

        Service Automation

        Go beyond answering questions to fully automate customer intent through fulfillment.

        Learn more

        • Intelligent Virtual Agent

          Boost self-service satisfaction and conversion with conversational AI agents.

        • Experience Optimization (XO)

          Synthesize real customer conversations to identify your top automation opportunities.

        • AI Agents

          Instantly create no-code AI agents powered by your data—build once, deploy everywhere.

        • Proactive AI Agent

          Keep customers engaged in conversation from onboarding to installation, service, and retention.

        • Knowledge Management

          Activate AI-powered enterprise knowledge to increase self-resolution rates and loyalty.


      • Solutions

      • By Business Initiative

        By Business Initiative

        • Grow Revenue

          Boost conversions and win rates to accelerate growth

        • Engage & Empower Employees

          Create a workplace of truly engaged employees

        • Boost Customer Loyalty

          Improve customer loyalty on interactions across the journey

        • Drive Digital Transformation

          Integrate digital technology at the center of CX

        • Small and Medium Business

          Drive growth and boost revenue with smarter, cost-effective customer service built for SMBs.

        • Call Center Software

          Empower agents to provide better experiences

        • Increase Operational Efficiency

          Leverage AI and automation to increase agent retention

        • Move to the Cloud

          Elevate experiences by moving operations to the cloud

        • Improve Compliance

          Protect your consumers with pre-built compliance solutions

        • Proactive Customer Engagement

          Elevate customer satisfaction with proactive conversational AI

      • Integrations & Custom Solutions

        Integrations & Custom Solutions

        • CXexchange Marketplace

          Discover partner solutions to extend capabilities on our platform

        • Pre-Built Integrations

          Seamlessly connect your business systems with our platform

        • Developer Tools & APIs

          Endless customization options with RESTful APIs and robust SDKs

        • Partner Ecosystem

          Embark on a journey of shared success and collaboration

        91% of customers recommend NiCE as a preferred CCaaS vendor

        Gartner® named NiCE the only Customers’ Choice CCaaS vendor in its 2024 Peer Insights™ “Voice of the Customer for Contact Center as a Service” report.

        Get report


      • View All Products
    • Industries

      By Industry

        • BPO

          Business Process Outsourcers

        • Financial Services

          Customer experiences that count

        • Government

          Elevate citizen trust

        • Healthcare

          Healthy patient experiences

        • Insurance

          Secure policyholder experiences

        • Retail

          Delight customers where they shop

        • Telecom

          CX for Telecommunications

        • Travel & Hospitality

          Boost traveler and guest loyalty

        Discover the full value of AI in customer service

        Understand the benefits and cost savings you can achieve by embracing AI, from automation to augmentation.

        Calculate your savings

      • Services
        • Explore all Services

        Professional Services

        • Professional Services

          Industry-leading expertise, tools and know-how

        • Implementation Partners

          NICE-certified implementation partners

        • Business Consulting

          Your partner for successful transformation

        Training

        • Contact Center Training

          Tailored education delivered by CX experts

        Support & Assistance

        • Customer Support

          Global support you can depend on

        Make the smartest buying decision with the latest Gartner analysis

        NiCE has been named a Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ Leader for Contact Center as a Service for the 11th consecutive year and is positioned furthest on Completeness of Vision.

        Get report

      • Resources

          Knowledge Base

          • All Resources

            Whitepapers, datasheets, demos and more

          • Analyst Perspectives

            Contact center reports from third party analysis

          • Terms Glossary

            Detailed descriptions of industry-related terms

          • FAQs

            Contact center focused frequently asked questions

          • Guides

            Expert insights for superior CX

          Learning & Insights

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Browse our extensive webinar catalog

          • Interactive Product Tours

            Explore the complete platform with our self-guided demos

          • Blog

            CX industry guidance by contact center experts

          • Why NiCE? Video Series

            Step Inside The Room Where It Happened to see CX AI in action

          • NiCE & Simple: Video Demo Series

            Brilliant, bite-sized videos from our top product pros

          Community

          • Events

            Upcoming events and webinars

          • Customer Stories

            Our customer's success is paramount. Read case studies about real CX transformation

          • NiCE Clubs

            Collaborate, learn, and share best practices for customer service excellence

          Discover the full value of AI in customer service

          Understand the benefits and cost savings you can achieve by embracing AI, from automation to augmentation.

          Calculate your savings

        • Company

            Company

            • About Us

              Powering seamless cloud experiences

            • Investors

              Investors relations, reports and filings

            • Global Offices

              Interactive map of locations worldwide

            • Careers

              View job openings and learn about our culture

            • NiCE Leadership

              Meet our global leadership and executive team

            News & Media

            • Events

              Upcoming events and webinars

            • Press Releases

              Find the latest updates from NiCE

            • Media Center

              Media contacts and resources

            Corporate Governance

            • NiCE Trust Center

              Securing your trust with every interaction

            • Market Leadership

              Discover why NiCE is the market leader

            • Corporate Responsibility

              In a world where you can be anything, be NiCE

            Make the smartest buying decision with the latest Gartner analysis

            NiCE has been named a Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ Leader for Contact Center as a Service for the 11th consecutive year and is positioned furthest on Completeness of Vision.

            Get report

            • ENLanguages
              • English
              • Deutsch
              • Français
              • 日本
              • 简体中文
              • العربية
              • 한국
              • Español
            • Get Started
              • Login
              • Status
              • Support
              • Partners
              • Pricing
              • Careers

            Company

            • About Us
            • Careers
            • Global Leadership
            • Media Center
            • Investors
            • Awards
            • Global Office Locations
            • Contact Us
            • CCaaS
            • Customer Experience
            • NiCE Public Safety
            • NiCE Actimize
            • NiCE RPA

            Partners

            • NiCE Partners Overview
            • Developer Partners (DEVone)
            • CXone Mpower Partner Portal
            • NiCE Help Partner Portal
            • NiCE User Group

            Customer Support

            • Customer Support Overview
            • CXone Mpower Support Login
            • NiCE Customer Support
            © 2025 NiCE
            • Terms of Use
            • Site Map
            • Privacy Policy
            • Legal
            • Cookies Settings
            • Accessibility

            Stay Connected

            © 2025 NiCE

            How to Manage Occupancy

            by Paul Chance
            January 27, 2021
            Share

            This blog is part of a series focused on solving contact centers’ top concerns. 

            Contact centers build in some downtime for agents during working hours due to lulls in incoming calls because of the occupancy level needed to realize their service level goals. It’s a balancing act: Keep employees busy, but don’t overwork them. But how do you know when busy becomes too busy?

            Contact center leaders charged with increasing efficiency while delivering on customer service imperatives measure and monitor the amount of time agents spend on activities like talking to customers or performing post-call tasks. When agents are too busy, however, as indicated by consistently high occupancy levels, they can quickly become burned out and be at risk of attrition.

            Agent occupancy, an important consideration for budgeting and resource planning, essentially measures how busy agents are.  Occupancy represents the percentage of logged-in time that employees are occupied, performing call center activities. The inverse of occupancy, or 100% minus the occupancy rate, is the amount of time employees are waiting for calls to arrive. This is also known as availability or idle time.

            A higher occupancy rate generally indicates a more efficient call center in terms of workforce management (WFM) and labor costs. Occupancy rates in the high 90% range, however, can indicate that employees have an extremely high workload. This in turn can lead to fatigue, poor performance and eventually high turnover as well as lower service levels, causing longer wait times for customers. 

            A low occupancy rate, on the other hand, can indicate poor planning or scheduling -- too many employees are waiting for calls to arrive. This can lead to poor morale and employee dissatisfaction. Other factors that can affect occupancy include Not Ready, Unavailable and Auxiliary Time; each allows employees to stay logged in but unavailable for calls, thus affecting occupancy. Not Ready codes like breaks, meetings and training account for up 8% to 10% of shrinkage in a typical contact center.

            Contact centers can manage occupancy through a few key best practices:

            • Hire the correct number of employees, with the right skills and abilities.
            • Manage occupancy levels at different points of the day to establish benchmarks.
            • Ask employees to handle different tasks (work items) during quiet periods. Ideally, your workforce management solution will handle this automatically.
            • Use internal staff for normal call volume and BPO for peak volumes.
            • Try to push some volume to other media channels, such as email, that do not require the same service level objectives, to smooth out workload. 

            Keeping agents productive yet available for the next call so service levels are met is a balancing act, but one that can be quantified and optimized by better managing occupancy.  Workforce management (WFM) solutions can help. Learn more about how the NiCE WFM Suite is helping contact centers take a multi-pronged approach to managing occupancy.

            About the Author

            Paul Chance

            Over 25 years helping organizations help serve their customer in a manner that helps both the organization and their customers through enabling technologies and processes. This is a win - win scenerio. I firmly believe that with the right technology and processes organizations can meet their revenue and profit goals while increasing customer retention and increasing the number of customers recommending the organization to their friends.

            See All Blogs

            Follow Us

            Follow us to get the latest news from your preferred Social Network

            linkedinlinkedinlinkedinlinkedin

            Popular Posts

            September 29, 2025

            7 reasons to automate interaction summarization with AI

            Read

            September 23, 2025

            The rise of the exponential consumer and the future of customer experience

            Read

            September 19, 2025

            The integrations iceberg: Over-customization is sinking your contact center CX

            Read

            September 17, 2025

            NiCE is a Leader and recognized highest in Ability to Execute and furthest in Completeness of Vision in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for CCaaS

            Read

            September 9, 2025

            4 ways a people-first AI strategy drives better service

            Read

            More from the blog

            AI

            7 reasons to automate interaction summarization with AI

            Without question, there are impactful AI tools emerging in 2025 to help organizations achieve their goal of an elevated customer experience.

            September 29, 2025

            AI

            The rise of the exponential consumer and the future of customer experience

            We expect deliveries in a day, playlists curated instantly, and service that never quits. Convenience is no longer a differentiator, it’s the baseline.

            September 23, 2025

            Workforce Optimization

            The integrations iceberg: Over-customization is sinking your contact center CX

            There’s a danger lurking underneath your contact center that could threaten your long-term success in CX.

            September 19, 2025