Auxiliary (AUX) Time in Percent
Definition
Auxiliary (AUX) Time in Percent
Auxiliary (AUX) time in percent is the share of an agent’s paid shift spent logged in but unavailable to take calls, covering breaks, training, coaching, meetings, and admin work booked under an AUX code. Most contact centers target 12 to 18 percent.
Workforce planners watch AUX minute by minute because it decides whether the call center hits its answer targets. A quiet 3 percent creep across 200 agents costs the same as pulling six full-time heads off the phones.
That’s why AUX sits inside every workforce management forecast, right next to shrinkage and occupancy rate. The International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) treats it as the third leg of the staffing stool.
Get AUX wrong and the whole day’s staffing math shifts. Get it right and you buy coaching minutes that pay for themselves in lower attrition — the reason mature floors defend their AUX budget instead of shaving it.
Key takeaways
- AUX time in percent = AUX minutes ÷ total logged-in minutes × 100.
- Healthy AUX for inbound service sits at 12–18 percent; sales floors run tighter at 8–12 percent.
- Every 1 percent of AUX drift on a 200-seat floor equals roughly two full-time equivalents.
- AUX is not the same as shrinkage, which counts unplanned absence on top.
- Split AUX into paid-productive, paid-unproductive and unpaid buckets so you know what you’re paying for.
How it works
AUX time in percent tallies every minute an agent stays logged in but unavailable, then divides that total by logged-in minutes. The automatic call distributor (ACD) stamps each state change, and planners roll the codes up daily by half hour interval.
Most platforms ship a default code set that admins then customize. Genesys, NICE, Five9 and Amazon Connect all expose roughly 8 to 12 codes out of the box, and the three-bucket split below is the shape most planners settle on.
| Bucket | Examples | Typical share of shift |
|---|---|---|
| Paid productive AUX | Callbacks, case notes, coaching, email replies, quality reviews | 5–8% |
| Paid unproductive AUX | Team huddles, training, system outages, HR meetings | 3–6% |
| Unpaid AUX | Lunch, mandated rest breaks, restroom | 4–6% |
| Total planned AUX | The single number the daily forecast is built on | 12–18% |
Coaches watch the intraday AUX chart on a rolling 30 minute window because staffing gaps surface there before the abandon rate moves. A floor sitting 4 points above plan at 10am is already borrowing from the afternoon — the queue never returns those calls.
ContactBabel’s Inner Circle Guide to Contact Centre Workforce Optimisation put average UK unavailability at 14 percent in its 2024 edition, holding steady since 2021 despite the move to home working. The ContactBabel research library refreshes that guide annually.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics occupational profile for customer service representatives describes paid non-productive time nearer 20 percent of shift. That’s roughly 6 points above the disciplined contact centre band.
Examples
Real deployments show how AUX policy moves both cost and satisfaction. The pattern repeats: split the codes finely enough to see the problem, fix the cause, then re-cut the schedule around whatever is left. Four cases make the point.
Concentrix ran a 2024 pilot at its Manila and Bogotá sites, splitting AUX into 11 sub-codes. Team leads found “system slow” was eating 2.4 percent of shift, a legacy CRM problem. The fix clawed back the equivalent of 30 heads across both sites.
Teleperformance publishes a Global Impact Report each year showing coaching AUX climbing from 3.1 percent of shift in 2021 to 4.6 percent in 2024. That rise is deliberate — more coaching minutes track with lower attrition on the same floors.
A US health insurer running a captive contact centre capped unpaid lunch AUX at 30 minutes per shift after callback delays triggered HIPAA complaints. AUX policy became a compliance control there, not just a staffing one.
Alorica’s Cebu site, servicing a US retail client, cut AUX from 21 to 15 percent in Q3 2024 by moving one-on-one coaching into a rotating 30 minute post-shift slot. Answer speed improved by 12 seconds inside a month.
None of those wins start on a dashboard. Every figure above begins as an auxiliary work state written by the ACD, which is why code hygiene beats any reporting tool you can buy.
Related terms
AUX time in percent sits in a tight cluster of workforce metrics, and mixing them up is the most common reporting error on a floor. These terms mark the boundaries between the state, the total, the mirror metric and the plan.
- Auxiliary Work State: the underlying agent state that AUX time totals up.
- Shrinkage: total unavailable hours including unplanned absence, so always the bigger number.
- Occupancy Rate: the mirror metric, covering the share of logged-in time spent talking or wrapping.
- Workforce Management: the discipline that forecasts and schedules against AUX assumptions.
- Schedule: the daily plan that bakes in expected AUX by half hour interval.
- Call Center: the operating environment where AUX rules get set and enforced.
- Agents: the frontline staff whose logged states drive the percentage.
FAQ
Six questions cover what planners, team leads and buyers ask most about AUX time in percent, from the benchmark band to the platform view. Each answer holds on its own, so you can quote any one of them without reading the rest.
What’s a good AUX time in percent for a contact centre?
Twelve to 18 percent is the accepted band for inbound service. Sales floors push tighter, at 8 to 12 percent, because dial time is the revenue engine. Anything under 8 percent usually signals uncoded breaks rather than real efficiency.
How is AUX time in percent different from shrinkage?
AUX counts only the minutes an agent is logged in but unavailable. Shrinkage adds unplanned absence, sick days, tardiness and paid leave, so it always runs higher. Both feed the same staffing forecast.
Does high AUX hurt customer satisfaction?
High uncoded AUX does. Well-managed AUX for training, coaching and short resets tends to lift satisfaction, because agents come back sharper. ICMI’s 2023 benchmark reported a 4 point CSAT lift on floors running dedicated coaching AUX.
Should agents choose their own AUX codes?
Yes, but from a locked list of 8 to 12 plain-language options. Free text and catch-all “other” codes destroy the reporting inside a week. Pair the list with supervisor review of anyone who exceeds the shift target.
Where does AUX fit in a workforce management platform?
AUX lives in the intraday view and feeds the next day’s forecast. NICE, Verint, Calabrio and Alvaria all treat it as a first-class input alongside call volume and average handle time.
Can AUX time be reduced without hurting quality?
Yes, and the paid-unproductive bucket is where you start — fixing slow login scripts, consolidating huddles and swapping classroom training for micro-modules typically pulls 2 to 3 points out of the line without touching coaching or breaks.
Compare outsourced contact centre providers that already run tight AUX discipline on the Outsource Accelerator hubs.
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