A key focus of every call center is average handle time (AHT), a metric that tells how long a typical call with an agent lasts. The lower the number, the more calls that can be handled each shift. The more calls your reps can handle, the more money your center can generate.
In fact, AHT is directly tied to agent productivity, operational costs, customer satisfaction, and yes, financial outcomes. Thus, the goal is to minimize the performance indicator while consistently meeting customer needs. While not always easy to pull off, it can be done. Here’s how.
What is AHT?
If tracked correctly, this call center metric measures the average duration of an entire customer interaction. That means talk time, hold time, and any post-call work such as updating records or processing requests.
The formula for calculating AHT is (Total talk time + Total hold time + Total post-call work) /Total number of calls = AHT.
Why Does AHT Matter?
A center’s AHT indicates how efficient and effective the facility is at taking care of consumers in a timely manner. So, high-quality interactions result in better customer satisfaction, improved resource utilization, and more efficient overall interactions.
Streamlining each call, for instance, allows agents to handle more interactions per shift. And an optimized AHT calls for improved agent utilization. At length, you may discover that service levels can be maintained with a smaller team, which will lower overall costs.
A lower AHT can also increase agent confidence, as reps who learn to effectively manage their time feel more empowered. Further, customers generally prefer shorter (but effective) calls, with less time on hold. And that can pay off. In fact, some 90% of U.S. customers demonstrate more brand loyalty following an immediate response to their question or concern, according to CMS Wire in 2023.
A major caveat, however: customers do not want to feel hurried or that their issues are overlooked.
What Impacts AHT?
There are a number of factors that can affect average handle time, including call and product complexity, agent experience and training, available technology and tools, and customer wait times. Factors can also include season and time of day, company policies and procedures, and even customer demographics such as age and technical aptitude.
The customer’s language proficiency — the ability to use a language during spontaneous real-world situations — also figures into AHT. Relatedly, customers often find some off-shore agents’ accents hard to understand, undesirable, or both. Such language barriers can also add time to center calls. More on this aspect later.
Optimizing AHT
Improving AHT can be tricky, as there’s a fine line between efficiency and quality responsiveness. However, there are several effective steps you can take to improve your handle time metric.
Accessible Resources
Establish and maintain a thorough, easily accessible knowledge base for product info, frequently asked questions, and troubleshooting.
Effective Coaching
Well-trained and prepared representatives will generally settle issues quicker than those who are not. It’s a good idea to incorporate role-playing exercises into training and share high performers’ best practices and techniques.
Frequent One-On-One Sessions
Slate regular feedback sessions to go over call recordings with agents. You should provide constructive feedback, focusing on areas in which call duration can be shortened without diminishing quality.
Provide Tools
Agents should be supplied with key resources such as decision trees, call scripts, and fast reference guides. These tools will improve efficiency and lessen time spent searching for info during calls.
Establish Goals
Make sure agents understand AHT goals while stressing that quality resolution is the main priority. Expectations should also be considered alongside other important indicators including first-call resolution and customer satisfaction.
Streamline Manual Processes
Automate routine tasks. For example, you can develop efficient inter-departmental handoff processes to mitigate post-call work. You can also standardize note-taking procedures and establish templates for common emails.
Use AI to Enhance Efficiency
Automated call summaries, which can highlight customer sentiment, action items, and key points, can free up agent time and ensure accurate and consistent documentation. The same for automated call transcripts.
Leverage Call Routing
Traditionally, call centers are known for seemingly endless — and often aggravating — transfers and robotic prompts. Intelligent call routing can eliminate this by leveraging algorithms to analyze inbound calls based on factors such as caller location, history, past interactions, and reason for calling. The technology subsequently matches every caller with the best agent based on availability, expertise, and skills.
Common AHT Mistakes to Avoid
There are some common missteps that can hamstring efforts to lower AHT while maintaining quality assurance.
Those include:
- Putting speed over quality. While the goal is a low AHT, that should never be achieved at the expense of excellent service.
- Discounting customer feedback. Paying attention to consumer feedback can provide valuable insights into where time is unnecessarily spent during calls.
- Foregoing agent training. While neglecting agent training may save money in the short term, it will ultimately increase AHT.
- Having obsolete software or tools. Failing to update agent technology will result in unnecessary delays. Thus, it’s important to regularly review and refresh technology as necessary.
- Assigning excessive tasks. Overburdening agents with tasks other than handling calls can lead to exhaustion and increased AHT.
- Overlooking center analytics. Reviewing call center data will reveal patterns and insights that can help you learn what actions and behaviors are affecting AHT.
- Pushing agents unrealistically. Establishing unrealistic expectations can burn out reps and contribute to an already high average call center turnover rate of between 30-45% annually. Set targets that balance efficiency with quality.
How Tomato.ai Can Help
People are commonly judged by how they speak, and those whose accents are considered unappealing can find their employment affected.
This is especially true with call center agents and other positions that require a great deal of verbal communication. Representatives possessing accents that customers regard as foreign must often endure abusiveness and impatience, and have their competence called into question. Such customer interactions can increase average handle times.
Tomato.ai offers a transformative solution in its accent translation solution. The tool clarifies the voices of offshore agents in real time, turning words into those that sound to customers like a language’s native speaker. The result is improved perceived intelligibility and lower consumer frustration levels — as well as potentially reduced average handle times.
