Manage Average Handling Times in Contact Centres

Manage Average Handling Times in Contact Centres – Thomas Rødseth, VP of Product & Marketing at Intelecom, takes a closer look at AHT (Average Handle Time) in multi-channel contact centres

With all the talk of Customer Experience Management and Customer Effort, it’s easy to forget that customer service managers don’t have bottomless pits of money.

Best practice in contact centre management isn’t just about being effective, it’s also about being efficient. That is why many traditional measures of call centre performance, such as Average Handle Times, are as relevant as ever.

But how do you deliver consistently strong performance when handling multiple customer contact channels?

While every organisation would love to think they could deliver first time fixes (FTF), each and every time, with great customer experience scores and a low AHT, it’s not always that easy. Targeting a low Average Handling Times can sometimes result in contacts being rushed and that can negatively impact both customer experience and first time fixes.

Here are 6 ways that we believe contact centres can reduce Average Handling Times without impacting the customer experience:

1) Analyse customer demand – use demand categorization to analyse which contacts:
– Deliver value effectively to both parties
– Create opportunities to develop new products/services
– Occur when a process or product/service went wrong
– Represent waste or demand generated by third parties

By categorizing demand, you can improve contact handling processes in a more structured way, while focusing on goals such as improved customer experience, lower cost or shorter AHT.

2) Review business process

After tackling demand categorization, address inefficiencies and fix broken processes that are inflating AHT by:
– Removing agent requirements that don’t directly impact the customer experience
– Examining scripts and removing time-wasting questions
– Reducing time wasted during wrap-up by using wrap-codes to categorize contact “types”
– Streamlining agent workflows and processes to improve efficiency.

3) Switch customers to intelligent self-service

Introduce web and ‘phone self-service where customers need simple and repetitive information (eg opening hours, account balances etc). By enabling customers to self-serve, you can get them the answers they require quicker and allow agents to handle more contacts, leading to lower AHT.

4) Create more efficient contact routing

Enable customers to self-select the best routing option by providing menus regardless of the channel used. Use natural language speech recognition technology to allow people to describe their own issues and create contact routing rules that take into account agent skills and knowledge. Ensure that your contact handling technology can support a broad range of routing options (from agent hunt groups to least idle, least occupied, skill level and service level routing).

5) Provide agents with a single view of customer conversations

Invest in omni-channel technology that gives agents a single view of customer activity across all channels and time periods. If you can immediately identify customers with unresolved service issues (from phone numbers or email address) then route them to the agent that’s been handling their query or a suitable skilled agent. Also consider giving agents easy access to customer relationship management (CRM) data – such as purchased product details and previous service enquiries.

6) Shorten customer greetings

Especially those that have no real impact on the customer experience. So rather than “Good afternoon madam, how are you doing today?” try “Good afternoon Jackie, how can I help you?” This will encourage customers to get to the point quicker.

Follow these six ways to lower AHT and increase customer satisfaction while delivering greater personalisation. The technology is available so what’s stopping you?

Additional Information