How the calculator works
- Cost per ticket = minutes per ticket ÷ 60 × staff cost per hour
- Cost per month = tickets per month × cost per ticket
- Hours per month = tickets × minutes ÷ 60
- Full-time staff = hours ÷ 160 (one full-time person works roughly 160 hours a month)
The example above: 300 tickets a month, 10 minutes each, 30 an hour. That is 5 per ticket, 1,500 a month, 18,000 a year and 50 hours of work, almost a third of a full-time job. At a 40% “where is my order?” share, 600 of it goes to that one question.
Where the minutes come from
Writing the answer is quick. The expensive part is everything before it: finding the order in the store, checking the tracking number with the carrier, looking in the returns portal, back to the inbox. In our own stores a return case took eleven, twelve minutes this way; today it takes about two (the full story).
What the calculator leaves out
- Follow-up tickets: every answer that comes a day late often creates a second ticket about the same question.
- Goodwill under time pressure: a refund that a tracking lookup would have avoided does not show up as support cost; it shows up as lost margin. The profit margin calculator shows how much.
- Reviews and chargebacks: slow answers cost future revenue.