Time is a crucial metric for customers and businesses in today's business world. Average handling time is crucial in customer service and helps the customer support team measure the efficiency of the business concerning time.
Many call centers originally introduced this metric but now it is an important metric and a standard key performance indicator (KPI) for businesses providing digital support to their customers.
This metric gives businesses an insight into how effectively their support teams manage customer interactions. These customer interactions lead to overall customer satisfaction and efficiency.
By understanding this meaning, companies can improve service quality, reduce wait times, and enhance customer experience. Let us discuss what aht means and how it is an important metric.
Understanding average handle time is essential for optimizing customer service. AHT is the time to resolve a customer query and its analysis can help businesses identify the areas of improvement and streamline any processes that can better serve the customers. The following AHT definition and AHT calculation will give you a better understanding of this standard KPI.
Average handle time is a crucial KPI used to measure the efficiency of customer service interactions, particularly in contact centers. AHT calculates the total time customers spend on a call, including all phases of interaction (from talk time to post-call time). AHT includes the following.
The average talk time is the actual duration the agent spends speaking with the customer.
The hold time the customer spends waiting for the agent to extract essential information that is needed for customer support.
It also includes the after-call work time required to complete any follow-up tasks once the call is ended, such as updating any records or sending any emails.
Simply put, AHT is the average duration of a customer's interaction with the service team. Businesses can know how effectively they deal with their customers by calculating the average time spent on handling customer phone calls.
By focusing on reducing AHT, businesses can ensure that there is a quicker resolution to customer problems. Reduced AHT will improve customer satisfaction and lead to more efficient operations.
The average handle time formula is very simple, where you need to divide the total handle time by the total number of calls. The total handle time has three components, including Talk Time, Hold Time, and After-call work time. You can calculate average handle time by using the average handle time formula mentioned below.
AHT = Total Handle Time/ Total Number of Calls
The measurement of AHT starts from the moment the customer calls (the talk time) and the interaction continues, including any time spent on hold or wrap-up time after the call ends. You can use the average handle time formula to measure accurate aht.
The main reason for measuring average handle time is to improve customer experience. Customer perception about your company matters a lot, if you spend a lot of time with customers on a call to solve their query, they may develop a negative view about your company.
The ideal situation should be where AHT for your business is zero meaning there is no issue that customers are facing. It is impossible for customers to not have a query at all or never contact the support team, but the lower the AHT the better it is for the business.
Moreover, the fact that the quality of the call also matters should never be ignored. If the customer support agent is always in a rush to get off the call just to improve AHT, it will also impact the customer experience negatively.
Thus, excellent customer service is putting your customers first and showing a genuine interest in solving their queries, providing them with omnichannel support, and setting clear goals to enhance customer experience. Following are some primary reasons, why measuring AHT is important.
Average handle time helps businesses measure how efficiently the call center agents are resolving customer issues. By measuring this, managers will be able to manage the labor costs, because agents who work more efficiently can manage a higher customer call volume of interactions with the customers. It also helps businesses identify the factors of unproductivity in teams and fix them.
By measuring average handle time, businesses can analyze the areas of saving call center costs. If they start by optimizing the support center calls handled by agents, they will be able to scale this cost-saving throughout the operations.
If the support center of the business has various calls and the wait time is too long, the customer satisfaction score is negatively impacted. By reducing average handle time, companies will be able to enhance the user experience. Lower AHTs also mean that calls are moving faster through the queue.
By tracking average handle time aht, businesses will also be able to identify the areas of improvement, such as an agent constantly having higher AHT. This will identify how there is an issue in the training of this specific agent, who needs additional training to deal with customer calls. They will also be able to identify high performers and rewarding them will further motivate these employees to perform better.
Average handle time aht data can also help businesses optimize staffing. The volume of the calls will give an idea of how many agents are required. Sometimes the product is so complex that there is technical support required by businesses, and there is no way they can improve AHT. In such cases, businesses can employ more staff to effectively distribute the calls handled.
Understanding industry benchmarks and standards for AHT is crucial for evaluating business performance. These benchmarks provide a reference point to ensure the team's efficiency and also help to identify if any improvements are needed.
Setting appropriate targets for AHT is essential for efficient and effective customer service. A good AHT is typically around 6 minutes, it is also important to recognize that the benchmark is widely dependent on various factors such as the nature of work, technicality of the product, and agent performance.
The benchmark of 6 to 7 minutes is considered a good benchmark for various industries and is a useful reference point. Different businesses have different targets, especially the ones with more complex customer problems as compared to ones having simpler products.
Moreover, the average handle time targets can also vary depending on the nature of the call, some might be just routine calls for simple steps such as finding an option. However, others might be complex if they require troubleshooting or detailed explanations.
It is a good practice to compare your average handle time aht with standard industry AHTs, but it is equally important to customize the AHT based on specific needs and circumstances. Regularly reviewing and adjusting the AHT targets is also an excellent practice for businesses to remain relevant.
It is very easy to fall into some common pitfalls while you are managing your average handle time. One of the most common mistakes is focusing too much on reduced AHT. While efficiency is important, it should never come at the cost of the call quality. The agents may try to get off the call so soon without adequately answering customer questions.
Another mistake is ignoring the impact your average handle time is creating on your customer satisfaction scores (CSATs). Leaving customers' calls and making them feel unheard or unsatisfied is going to create a negative perception of your business in their minds.
You can solve these common issues by striking a balance between efficiency and quality. Establish clear guidelines for having a high-quality service while also helping customers quickly and not spending too much time on calls.
We have also discussed a few strategies below in detail to help you effectively improve the average handle time.
Businesses need to improve their average handle time, and we have covered some important strategies to do that in detail.
Offering specialized agent training programs tailored to specific types of customer inquiries will lead to agent efficiency. Equipping agents with the right skills needed to deal with customer calls will enable them to excel in providing customer service through these calls.
Documenting detailed information about the business and the product that agents can access is a great way to help them solve customer queries promptly. They will be able to access that internal knowledge base whenever needed during calls, reducing the overall average handle time.
Conducting gap analysis on a general basis will also help businesses identify what type of resources are needed by agents when helping customers over the calls. This will help in identifying the areas of improvement.
Implementing self-service tools where customers can find answers to common queries without the need to call a help center will greatly reduce the number of calls you will receive in a day. These resources can include, chatbots, FAQs, and an internal knowledge base, especially for customers.
Use automation in your workflows where the call for specific customer queries can be directed to specific departments without the need for manual call routing. Adding common queries to the IVR system will help customers get answers without speaking to an agent.
Invest in overall employee experience as happy and engaged employees are more likely to provide better service and handle calls efficiently. Create a positive work environment where they have opportunities to grow and get rewards for good agent performance.
Ensure that employees have the right resources they need to access while providing help to customers, Taking care of employees' needs will improve the overall quality of business.
Striking the right balance between AHT or call quality and efficiency requires a comprehensive customer experience strategy. Make it an important part of your strategic goals to help employees and customers have a good experience throughout the interaction.
Focusing on providing the most effective support and ensuring that customer satisfaction is not sacrificed for speed is key to being successful in the business world. You have to ensure that customers do not feel unheard just because you want to provide a quick solution to the customer's query.
In summary, Average handle time is finding the right balance between efficiency and quality. By providing training to agents, leveraging technology, and fostering a positive work environment, you will be able to optimize AHT at your work and achieve lasting success through customer satisfaction.
Looking for more customer support glossary? Check it out.
