Jack is running a successful million-dollar company that makes an annual turnover of about $100 million. But over the past few months, he and his colleagues have been receiving a lot of mixed reviews for the company’s products and services. Diving deep into the situation, what he found was unanticipated. While a number of customers were happy with their services, a lot of them were not satisfied and shared negative reviews due to reasons like delayed customer service and query resolution, excessive hold time and a long Average Handle Time (AHT).
Average Handle Time (AHT) is very accurately defined by this term, as it is the time taken by an agent to handle a call from a customer. This time includes not only the time taken by the agent to talk to the customer (Talk time), but a few other factors of the interaction as well such as updating notes and comments (Wrap Time), hold time, etc. The average handle time is one of the key metrics tracked and managed for any voice or transaction-based process and usually has an impact on other organizational KPIs like CSAT, productivity and quality.
As per the industry standards, AHT should be as low as possible. However, the definition of “low” might vary from industry to industry. For instance, AHT for an insurance company would be different from that of banking institutions. Wondering about how to attain the required score? Mentioned below are some of the important tips that may help:
1. Recording Every Call
The messages at the start of any call from a contact center, such as, “This call may be recorded for quality and training purposes,” aptly hold. This is because any call between an agent and the customer is recorded and reviewed later by the contact centers to get an insight into how their agents handle the rings, the problem areas, and the scope of improving their AHT.
2. Streamlining The Agent’s Workflow
To help agents deliver improved productivity, the managers must determine a well-defined and planned workflow. It is the responsibility of the managers to identify any factors leading to their inefficient performance, which, in turn, results in an increased AHT and, hence, a poor customer satisfaction score. Automating all the repetitive manual tasks and helping the agents with a predefined process to follow can be a great idea to lower AHT.
3. Build A Knowledge Repository
Having a knowledge base ready to handle all the customer queries can be a great idea to reduce AHT. A good knowledge repository at one’s disposal can serve as a great help when the customer asks some out-of-the-league queries or is looking for an immediate resolution. Moreover, having a knowledge repository ready at one’s disposal enables the agent to respond appropriately and reduces the caller’s average waiting time.
4. Shorten Customer Greetings
Greeting your customers at the start and end of every call is undoubtedly essential. However, this should not imply an unnecessary delay in query resolution. The greetings should always be short but pleasant enough to convey the agent’s positive attitude toward handling customer queries. Saying something like “How may I assist you today, Mr. XYZ?” would keep the communication friendly and allow the agents to jump straight to the point reducing the total AHT.
5. Employ Robust Technology
It is essential to use the latest technology best to enable the optimum performance of the contact center executives. This includes everything from updated systems and company infrastructure to the telephone lines. It is also essential for the agents to be sure that the information they share is 100% accurate, their voice quality is clear, and the customer on the call is satisfied with the resolution offered.
6. Implement IVR Technology
IVR technology serves as a blessing in this era of high competition. A type of self-service technology, adapting it in a contact center can significantly improve the agent’s AHT score and customer service as well as reduce their overall call burden. The technology is also helpful in collecting basic customer information and quickly resolving their queries, such as address and hours of operation, in the minimum possible time.
7. Evade Low Service Level
Tired contact center executives are another major factor leading to a higher AHT. This situation typically arises when many customers wait in a queue to connect with an agent, and the agent is wholly exhausted from handling call after call. To avoid poor performance scores of the customer service agents and improve AHT, motivating them to take breaks between calls and deliver an improved performance is recommended.
8. Take Advice From Customer Service Agents
To ensure the success of any process being developed for the contact center agents, it is recommended to take their advice on it as they are the ones who would work on it. This would provide you with the requisite inputs on the features that would and would not work to attain a specific target.
9. Evaluate The Type of Call
The type of calls handled by an agent directly impacts their AHT. For instance, if an agent handles all the billing-related calls whereas another agent handles form-related queries, the ATR for both these agents would be different. So, no single number can be used to judge their performance.
10. Try to Improve FCR
Lowering the FCR or First Call Resolution implies that the customer queries are handled on time and, hence, in turn, lead to an improved AHT. FCR means that the agents’ questions are resolved during the first call itself, ending the need for repetitive calls for the same query.
Tips to improve first call resolution
Attaining Lower AHT Should Not Impact Call Quality
Aiming to attain a lower AHT is indeed essential, but that should be done at a cost other than call quality. The agents should be motivated to resolve customer queries in the minimum time possible, but they should also be told that a lower AHT should not be attained at the cost of call quality. A lower call quality tends to leave the customers dissatisfied, leading to a negative brand image. Therefore, AHT should be the aim rather than at the cost of customer satisfaction score.
