Reducing the Average Handling Time of Calls in Your Call Center

Anyone that works in a call center these days knows what AHT is and how it affects everything they do. AHT is average handle time. This is the amount of time it takes to answer and service a call. It includes any wrap up time spent after you hang up and before you become available for the next call. Time is money so companies want their consultants off the phone call as quickly as possible in order to take the next call.

There are a few things you can do to work on lowering the AHT average for your call center. Management should work closely with your training department in order to put together an action plan.

Cut out the chit chat. Limit the amount of time your agents or consultants spend talking about the weather or what they did last night. Have them control the call. They can use closed ended statements so that there will be no more questions. When the agent controls the call they can keep it on track.

Get rid of your energy suckers - these are employees who bring down the whole office. Make them an improvement plan and stick to it. Move their seats so they do not 'infect' others around them. Misery loves company and they soon will cause the whole office to be unhappy. When an employee's are unhappy, then they are unproductive.

Listen to your employees - Create committees to work on Employee Satisfaction. Remember - your customer comes second! If your employees are happy they will be more productive and then your customer will be happy. Let them advise management what makes them happy. You might be surprised to find that most of their requests do not cost a lot of money.

Run incentive contests - one I use is this - the one that lowers their average AHT for the next month the most will win 1 hour off with pay (or any prize you pick). Make it something they all will want so they all concentrate on reducing their AHT. It is a win-win situation for you.