An intelligent call center solution provides various metrics to be monitored. A majority of these metrics could be your KPIs and you, as a call center or a business using the intelligent call center software, would like to improve KPIs. In this article, we are going to talk about one of the important metrics shown in the reports by the intelligent call center software, called, Average Handling Time (AHT).
What is AHT?
AHT means the time agents spent on each call. This includes the time spent on:
- Greeting
- Conversation
- Call hold and retrieve
- Filling disposition
- Show availability for the next call
It means the total time from the time a call is connected to the agent to the time agent concludes that call completely.
Why is it important?
Improving AHT means a clear improvement in the total talk time of the call center. It means making call queues shorter, quickly resolve customer concerns, and definitely increasing customer satisfaction. These are some out of the many benefits incurred from improved AHT.
How to improve AHT?
As now, you understand the importance of AHT. We will share major tips to improve its value. Here improving means reducing the number. For example, if the average AHT is 300 seconds, you need to make it 250 seconds or less than that. Let’s explore the major tips you can follow to improve average AHT and remember, you can see this value in your intelligent call center software.
1. Improve the IVR menu
Before connecting to an agent, each caller gets connected to an IVR. If your IVR menu is complex, it is more likely that the caller chooses the wrong option. This would lead intelligent call center software to route the call to the wrong agent. As you can imagine, this would increase AHT for obvious reasons. Therefore, keep your IVR menus short, easy to understand, and accurate.
2. Use of right dispositions
The right disposition message gives a glimpse of the last call’s conclusion, which saves the time of agents to learn the whole concern. This will reduce AHT.
3. Use the sticky agent
If your customers are calling repetitively, using the “Sticky Agent” call routing rule of intelligent call center software will drastically reduce AHT. The customer will not need to repeat the same story every time he or she calls and is connected to another agent. This improves average AHT.
4. Equip agent completely
Another major cause of increased AHT is unequipped agents. If your agents do not have access to the required information such as customer details, past interaction history, etc., then the agent will waste time in collecting this information and understanding the issue from scratch. This would increase the average handling time as well as total call hold time. Therefore, give easy access to all information about the caller if you have in your intelligent call center software or integrated CRM solution. Moreover, provide other tools and rights, so agents can resolve issues without wasting time on the call hold or call transfer.
If you are looking for intelligent call center software, which shows important KPIs, contact us.