Sign in

Blog · Board and management reporting · Customer service

Effort ratio on five accounts: the whole arithmetic on one page

The complete support effort ratio calculation on five accounts, small enough to check by hand: handling hours from the ticket export, quarterly revenue, effort per thousand dollars of revenue, the norm as the median among accounts of the same tier and product, the ratio to norm, the category split that separates a product fault from onboarding from a commercial mismatch, the account whose effort is near zero and whose tickets fell, and the assertion that effort hours sum to logged handling time, so a reader can reproduce every figure and then run it on their own ticket export.

The short answerFive accounts in one tier and product, with handling hours from the ticket export and quarterly revenue. Effort per thousand dollars of revenue is hours over revenue in thousands; the norm is the median of the five; the ratio is each account's figure over the norm. Two accounts are at five and six times the norm: one with two thirds of its hours in one product category over three years, a fault, and one two months old, onboarding. One is at a fifth of the norm with tickets down 80 percent, possibly disengaged. The five accounts' hours sum to the logged handling time for the tier. Every number can be reproduced by hand.

Effort per account is hours over revenue against a norm, and on five accounts the whole thing can be checked. This page works the hours, the ratio, the norm, the category split, the disengaged account and the assertion.

The rows

Tier: mid. Product: platform. Quarter.

Account Handling hours Revenue Tenure Top category and its share of hours
A 310 $210,000 3 years Integrations, 62%
B 140 $60,000 2 months How-to, 71%
C 9 $180,000 4 years none; 3 tickets
D 180 $95,000 2 years Configuration, 58%
E 45 $150,000 3 years Mixed
Total 684

Logged handling time for the tier and product this quarter: 684 hours. Assertion holds.

Effort per revenue and the norm

Effort per $1,000 = hours ÷ (revenue ÷ 1,000)

Account Effort per $1,000
A 310 ÷ 210 = 1.48
B 140 ÷ 60 = 2.33
C 9 ÷ 180 = 0.05
D 180 ÷ 95 = 1.89
E 45 ÷ 150 = 0.30

Norm = median of (0.05, 0.30, 1.48, 1.89, 2.33) = 1.48. On a real cell it would be the median of the whole tier; here A sits at it.

The ratio and the reading

Account Ratio to norm Tenure Category Reading
A 1.0 3 yrs Integrations 62% At norm; but see below
B 1.6 2 months How-to Onboarding; excluded from the list
C 0.03 4 yrs 3 tickets, down from 15 last quarter Silence: possibly disengaged
D 1.3 2 yrs Configuration 58% Above norm on configuration: commercial or training
E 0.2 3 yrs Mixed Fine

On a real base, with the norm at 0.3 as it typically is for this tier, A at 1.48 is five times the norm and D at 1.89 is six. The five-account median flatters both. The report says so by showing the cell count.

The category split, A

Category Hours Share
Integrations 192 62%
Configuration 60 19%
How-to 40 13%
Other 18 6%

Three years in, two thirds of the effort in one product category: a recurring fault. Engineering's list, with A on it.

The assertion

Σ accounts' hours = 684 = logged handling time for the cell

A ticket with no account would leave hours unattributed; the difference would be listed.

Where it goes wrong, even at five

Effort without revenue. A is the busiest account; so is any large account.

B on the list. Onboarding read as a problem.

C ignored. The account that stopped calling is the one about to leave.

Norm from five. The cell count is on the report; the real norm is from thirty.

From five to five thousand

The same hours per account over revenue, the norm per tier and product cell, the category split. Covirage runs it on the ticket export and the account list every quarter. The effort per account guide covers the measure, and the silence and surge guide covers C.

Questions people ask

What if handling time is not logged?

First-response-to-resolution elapsed time is the fallback, stated, or ticket count weighted by the category's median handling time. Both are worse than logged time and both still rank the accounts. The report says which was used.

Why is the two-month-old account not a finding?

Because onboarding is high-effort by design. Tenure is on the line, and an account under a stated tenure is shown with its ratio but excluded from the list. It becomes a finding if the ratio holds at six months.

How is the norm used at five accounts?

For the arithmetic. On a real base the norm is the median of thirty or more accounts in the tier and product cell, and it is greyed under the floor. Here the median of five is the reference so that the ratio can be worked.