What are the best practices for coaching agents to improve their average handle time?

AHT goals can seem to be meaningless, random and and counter productive, unless the process for determining the goal is shared. Contact center agents, in general, respond better when they are treated as intelligent individuals and the reasoning process being discussed in goal setting sessions will show they are respected and it will be easier to get their buy in

AHT is useful when it positively correlates with customer satisfaction, FCR, and operational efficiency, aiming not just for shorter calls but for an optimal call length that balances quality service and efficiency. Its management requires setting realistic targets (within an ideal time frame), using technology for efficiency, and equipping agents for effective resolutions. If necessary, AHT should be weighted within a holistic balanced scorecard, alongside other critical metrics like CSAT, FCR, Quality, etc. to avoid prioritizing speed over service. Regular adjustments to its "sweet spot" and scorecard weight ensure it supports strategic goals, balancing exceptional service with operational excellence.

AHT is a metric that is often outmoded. Look at First Call Resolution as a way to gauge the effectiveness of your CX practice. Do something radical, look at the days when the call volumes are lower- if you have more agents, rather than offering time off- Why not encourage your agents to spend MORE time making customers happy?

AHT is a critical component for successfully managing your operations but is a better goal for the management team than the agents. First Call Resolution is arguably more important and may even negatively affect AHT, but will help drive operational efficiency. You want the agents more focused on the customer than the clock. The goals for the agents should be on improving in the areas that drive high AHT, such as customer interaction skills, company and product knowledge, call control, etc. If the agents improve in those areas, the natural result will be a lower AHT and a more efficient operations.

First of all, don't set low AHT targets for your contact center agents. This will almost guarantee that your agents will rush people off the phone, not completely satisfy requests, and leave your customers with a bad taste in their mouth.

Want to ensure your agents rush customers off the phone and don't resolve their problems on the 1st call? Penalize them for AHT. That doesn't mean you can't have goals and coach those who continuously run long, but I'll take FCR (first call resolution) and NPS (net promoter score showing they enjoyed the interaction with the agent and your company) over AHT in most cases.

Regular and constructive feedback is an absolute must, however, focusing specifically on lowering AHT is a very dangerous game to play. This will almost always encourage bad behavior from agents, like rushing customers off the phone or not asking if there is something else they can help with.

Providing the right tools to lower AHT is a big one for me. Agents usually spend 2-5 minutes on ACW, a majority of that time being spent on taking notes. This is a huge contributor to high AHT. If you can provide them with tools such as Auto Call Summaries, this will drastically cut down their ACW and thus, their AHT. Work smarter not harder, right?

Coaching to avoid open-ended questions WHEN a yes/no would've sufficed is one step I've used. Obviously, there are times you have to ask open-ended questions. But getting into a yes/no dialogue where you ask the question, the customer replies quickly and you walk them step by step through the process can help with AHT.

I worked in a bank call center and was a senior rep. My call times were longer because I would get calls from customers who had issues either handled wrong by someone in the call center or branch. I could access systems that newer reps would not have as much expertise to use. When I was told I was on call too long I started transferring to supervisor since I knew it would be a complicated and take more time to solve. I got told to take care of the calls because the supervisor didn’t have time to do the call. What’s an employee suppose to do ??

It is important to Strike a balance between adhering to the script for Efficiency and allowing for adaptability in customer interactions. Also, advisors spend more time on issues they do not have control over on an interaction when they could have escalated to the appropriate desk and, maintained the quality standard to have a good score.

Involving the agents in the coaching process is an amazing way to keep you aligned with your CC agents. Especially when you're crafting the scorecards in which they are graded. This way, they'll know exactly what criteria they are being scored on and can be cognizant of it while they are on calls.

Companies with weak employee recognition programs are 12 times more likely to experience a higher turnover rate than those without. You HAVE TO recognize your agents when they are doing a great job.

remember FCR (first call resolution). When you penalize agents for going 20 seconds over AHT, you're encouraging them to rush customers off the phone without fully confirming the issue is resolved, causing a 2nd contact. And that 2nd contact often is far more expensive than had your agent just stayed on the phone another 20 seconds to do it right the first time.

Remember AHT and other lag indicators are all byproducts of lead indicators. Coach your agents on the lead indicators such as correct processes, keeping up to date on training, etc. and the lag indicators like AHT will take care of themselves.

Always expect an exception to exist, it does, and teach your managers how to handle those exceptions too. One memorable place I was at had an AHT of 10 minutes per call, it was cell phone repairs. Mostly just tell customers something like "Press these buttons in this order and your phone is back to normal.", then document. Most notes could be copy/paste as it was almost always the same type of call. However, middle of my time there had a caller activate 35 phones, at 10 minutes per activation advised it could take a while. I took all the information for 10 phones at a time and was able to activate all of them within 40 minutes. Boss wasn't thrilled, until he actually listened to the call, then he said "Well done".

Give your agents the right tools to keep their AHT down. Provide tools like automatic call summaries. Agents spend approximately 3-5 minutes on post-call work per call, and most of that time is spent on taking notes. If you can automate this process, you can drastically reduce the AHT for every single agent in your contact center.

Hopefully, in your call center, AHT is one indicator/measure and not the most important one. As others mentioned, other factors are often, and should be, more important. To help bring down AHT, make sure the person, everyone really, knows the tools and systems they use very well. The better they know them, the faster the average call. They, train them to quickly identify the most common calls so they can often "know" what comes next and prepare for it. Then there are often other factors such as physical tools available ( good chairs, better keyboards, few distractions, ergonomics etc ). AHT can be an indicator that the CSR needs help. It is also a team/department indicator showing you need to look at other outside factors influencing calls.