Improving Average Handling Time (AHT)

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  Average Handling Time is a key measure for all call centre professionals, from the call taker to the helpdesk manager. Higher level management often look at AHT to see how a contact centre is performing. From a call takers point of view, it can mean make or break when it comes to performance reviews. It's not just about trying to talk or type really fast. In fact, trying to do that usually results in poor performance because you're likely to jumble your words or make typing mistakes!
  
  Improving your AHT will show your manager that you are efficient, focused and determined at doing your job well. Here's 7 tips from my own experience as a helpdesk analyst that that are sure to impress your manager in your meeting:

1. Focus on the call: Distractions can come from all angles. The joker sitting next to you, gadgets in your pocket, even your web browser. All these things can eat into your handling time. The key is to ignore them - sit away from distracting people, turn off your phone, get off facebook. Give 100% attention to resolving the call in the shortest possible time with the best customer service you can give.
   
2. Use available tools: I recently observed a variety of our helpdesk analysts and found one of the major factors contributing to AHT was whether or not they used tools available. Scripts, macros and web browser favorites made all the difference. Why follow an eight step process when a macro was written to do the same thing? Can you write a script to gather consistent information from common calls? Have you saved commonly accessed documentation as a favorite? Knowing your tools and having them one click away can shave precious seconds from each call you take.
   
3. Type as you talk: Keeping the record updated during the call is key not only to improving your handling time, but also lifting the quality and level of detail in each call. The more you practice typing as you talk, you will find that not only will your AHT improve but there will be less silent awkward moments on the phone.
   
4. Take advantage of "dead air": The next time a customer places you on hold to look for their policy number or perform troubleshooting, start typing away at the keyboard. Remember to keep your hands on the keyboard to remind you to type, type, type! Take this opportunity to update your record keeping system with everything that has happened so far instead of rushing at towards the end of the call. The record will be complete, up to date and you will be mentally prepared for the next one.
   
5. Jump to the next call: Most contact centers measure their average handling time by adding talk time, hold time and a grace period together. This grace period is typically 30 to 60 seconds and is used to allow call takers to "tidy up" the record if needed. If you don't need it, show urgency by requesting for the next call to come in. This technique works extremely well for short easy calls. Let's say you dealt with a password reset taking two minutes with 1 minute tacked on the end as a grace period. Jumping to the next call and taking off that grace period just improved your AHT by 33%. Well done :)
   
6. Effective questioning: Asking the right questions to understand the problem will always lead to faster AHT. But what are the right questions? This would vary depending on the nature of your call center but in general, use open questions that will get your broad answers first such as "What do you mean by not working?" or "What have you tried so far?" instead of using closed questions that get yes/no answers like "Did you check the cable?". By using open questions, you'll be able to get the big picture and then start to probe deeper with closed questions.
   
7. Keep learning: Sometimes AHT simply comes down to being familiar with the issue or query being reported by the caller. If you know your stuff, naturally you'll be able to solve it faster. The only way to get familiar is taking on a mentality of continual learning and improvement. After your calls for the day, think back on a few where you didn't feel confident and ask yourself why. Was there no documentation? What questions should I next time around? What could I have done differently?
   
   When there is no outstanding work between calls browse through fix documents, ask your supervisor for tips on tricky calls, or write new fix documents to help your fellow team mates.