Shared part time agents provide 40 hours of support coverage at half the price of a full time agent.
Part time agents operate 2 to 4 hours each day, depending on the priority level you purchase. So, a single part time agent will be online, providing 8 hours of coverage each day, 5 days per week, but they’ll only be responding to customers and joining training sessions 2-4 hours each day.
We designed this solution for companies that don’t need a full time agent yet - either they don’t have enough inbound messages in total or if they need expanded coverage hours.
Every part time agent is managed by a shared team leader. When you hire a part time agent, you’re also hiring a complete support operation that delivers consistent outcomes and improves autonomously.
Three ways to hire a part time agent
With Influx, you hire part time agents on a priority system. A single part time agent usually works across two to three clients at the same time.
All three priority level agents are online for 40 hours each week. When choosing between the three, the main differences are:
- Expected avg response time
- Operational hours worked per day
- Omnichannel or digital only
Part time agent - priority 1
Priority 1 agents always respond to your customers first. This means that you can provide chat or call answering with your priority 1 part time agent, throughout a 40-hour weekly shift.
Though rostered across multiple clients, when a priority 1 agent hears the ding from an inbound message or chat from one of your customers, the priority 1 agent shifts to your ticketing system or chat platform to answer the inbound message.
They’re rostered for 8 hours per day (8 hours per day TIMES 5 days per week EQUALS 40 hours per week), and only operate at most 4 hours per day with your customers or in training meetings. This gives them the opportunity to work across multiple help desks.
If you need more than four hours per day of operational work, consider a full time dedicated agent instead.
Price for a priority 1 part time agent:
- $1,600/month/agent
- Omnichannel included (voice, chat, email)
- Management and training included
- Month to month
Part time agent - priority 2
Priority 2 part time agents respond to your customers as a second priority.
Priority 2 agents complete up to 4 hours of operational work per day.
Priority 2 agents make sense if your workflow is asynchronous - you’re ok with someone getting a response two hours after they send it - and you have up to 4 hours of operational work for an agent to do per day.
Price for a priority 2 part time agent:
- $1,200/month/agent
- Management and training included
- Month to month
Part time agent - priority 3
Priority 3 part time agents respond to your customer third. Though they’re rostered for an entire 8 hour shift per day, they only operate for two hours per day with your customers. They will always operate up to two hours per day when rostered (if there’s operational work to do).
Priority 3 part time agents provide a low cost option to clear the inbox, Monday to Friday, while allowing you to tap into our larger support org. It’s easy to transition from a priority 3 agent to a priority 2 or priority 1 agent, or full time dedicated agent or Support as a Service.
Price for a priority 3 part time agent:
- $800/month/agent
- Management and training included
- Month to month
Part time agents vs Full time agents
Part time agents operate two to four hours per day per client vs a full time dedicated agent who operates 8 hours per day for a single client.
Part time agents work across 2-3 clients at any time. Full time agents work with only a single client at one time.
Priority 1 part time agents can support all channels, including voice and chat. Dedicated support agents can be either omnichannel or digital-only. Pricing for digital-only dedicated support agents is a little bit less than omnichannel.
Priority 2 and priority 3 part time agents only provide digital support, and usually mostly work asynchronously.
Dedicated full time agents can also do operational back office work - product tagging, content moderation, data formatting, lead research, etc.
Not sure which one is right for you? That’s why we have a sales and onboarding team who can help. Contact them here.
Part time agents vs Support as a Service
Support as a Service is a pay per response support service that operates 7 days per week, including weekends. It provides consistent coverage, with weekly scale up and down, as you need it.
With Support as a Service, you’re paying for multiple trained agents to work inside your help desk or chat platform who then respond to tickets only when inbound volume arrives.
Both services include a shared team leader, and are managed by an experienced support manager.
When you hire a shared part time agent, you’re hiring a single agent that works five days per week. With Support as a Service, you’re hiring 2-3 agents at once, per region, who work 7 days per week.
Support as a Service plans start from $999/month for a single region.
Learn more about how Influx works here. We’ve worked with 500+ brands over the last 5 years to improve their support operations and give their customers a better experience, faster.
