How to Decrease AHT in your office (Average Handle Time)
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.
There are a few things you can do to work on lowering the AHT average for your call center.
Here are a few of my suggestions:
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Things You'll Need
- Time and patience - it will not happen overnight
- Cheerleaders - you need to enlist your top agents to be onboard and spread it around the office
Instructions
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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.
Have your training department put together a course on controling the call.
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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 you are unhappy you are unproductive.
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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.
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.
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Tips & Warnings
Have patience - it will not happen overnight
Move your agents with a bad attitude or low morale. I make them sit next to the supervisor so they can be watched all the time.
Have fun at work. Happy employees are more productive!
