E-commerce · 16-40 people · 100,000 tickets/mo · fast AHT · minimal
E-commerce support team: 18 agents for 100,000 tickets/month
Order status, returns, shipping and payment questions dominate e-commerce queues, and most of them are answerable without a human.
Verdict: Marginal — probably not
- Payback is 54 months — defensible only if you expect this volume for years.
- Headcount spans 25-43 agents across your industry's handle-time range. Measure your real AHT for two weeks before you budget - the band is usually wider than anyone expects.
- We phased the saving in over 12 months via attrition. Cutting 3 people on day one would cost roughly $40,633 in severance and is usually worse than phasing it.
- Agents needed
- 18
- range 25–43
- Monthly labour cost
- $97,519
- $135,442 – $232,961
- Heads removable via automation
- 3
- 15 agents remain
- Net monthly effect
- $443
- platform cost $15,810/mo
- Payback
- 53.73650380962746 months
- at this volume
- Year-one cash effect
- -$51,442
- including setup and severance
Put your own numbers in
These figures come from one assumed volume. Change the ticket count, AHT or cost per hour and the answer moves.
Related scenarios
The answer changes as volume, handle time and coverage move. These are the closest combinations worth comparing against.
Model v1. Figures are estimates from published benchmarks, not a quote.