FOR A 45-PERSON SUPPORT TEAM

₹1.94 crore a year, sitting in your queue.

Below is the arithmetic, not a marketing number. Every input is one you can check against your own helpdesk export in ten minutes. Change any of them and the conclusion changes — that is the point.

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/ INPUTS — CHANGE THESE TO YOURS

Tickets / month

18,400

Avg handle time

11m 40s

Fully-loaded cost / hr

₹640

Repeat-contact rate

23%

The working, line by line

01 · Agent hours consumed per month

18,400 tickets × 11m 40s = 3,577 hours

02 · Direct cost of handling

3,577 hrs × ₹640 = ₹22.9 lakh / month

03 · Share attributable to repeat contacts

₹22.9 lakh × 23% = ₹5.27 lakh / month wasted

04 · Deflection Cadence has measured across 40 teams

Repeat contacts down 61% → ₹3.21 lakh / month recovered

ANNUAL RECOVERY

₹38.5L

Against a ₹9.4L annual licence. Payback in 89 days, on these inputs.

Where this model is weakest

Every ROI page hides its assumptions. Here are ours, including the ones that hurt.

The 61% deflection figure is a median, not a guarantee+

Across 40 teams the range was 34% to 78%. Teams with a well-maintained help centre already start lower and gain less. If your repeat rate is under 12%, this model probably overstates your case.

We assume no headcount reduction+

The saving is recovered hours, not people removed. If you plan to shrink the team, the finance case is stronger and the change-management case is much harder. We deliberately model the conservative version.

Fully-loaded cost varies more than people expect+

₹640/hr assumes salary plus 38% overhead at a Tier-1 Indian city rate. Swap in your own number — it moves the total almost linearly.

Ramp is not instant+

The median team hits 61% deflection in month five, not month one. Year-one return of 4.1x already accounts for that ramp; the steady-state figure is 6.3x.

We are not counting revenue effects+

Faster resolution correlates with retention in our data, but the causal case is weak enough that we leave it out of the model entirely.