The Average Handle Time for an agent to solve a customer issue is between 6.46 - 6.73 minutes, and it's different for different industries based on customer service.
What is Average Handle Time (AHT)?
Average Handle Time is the average amount of time taken to resolve a customer service issue entirely from the beginning to the end.
AHT is an essential Key Performance Indicator (KPI) to be taken care of to provide a better overall customer experience (CX).
The Average Handle Time is sometimes compared with the First Call Resolution rate (FCR). FCR is the company’s ability to handle customer queries efficiently within the first reach without having the customer call back. AHT is the average ‘total’ handle time associated with resolving the whole issue throughout the handling process.
Processes involved during the Handle Time
Average handle time is usually confused with average talk time. Average talk time involves only the call duration between the customer and the agent. But, Average handle time consists of the time taken to solve the whole query or issue and the processes involved during the course.
Handle Time includes not only the length of the customer service call alone but also other factors like average:
• Customer call hold time
• Number of rings it takes to reach an agent
• Amount of time customer spends interacting with the IVR menu
• Follow-up or status update calls
• After-call tasks and assignments
• And more...
Formula to calculate AHT
Calculating average handle time is simple with the formula given below.
Example:
Total number of calls attended: 12 calls
Total talk time: 60 minutes
Total Hold Time of calls: 6 minutes (Approx. 30 seconds for each call)
Total Time taken for after-call procedures or adding inputs to the CRM software: 6 minutes
Average Handle Time: (60 minutes + 6 minutes + 6 minutes) / 12 calls = 6 minutes of AHT
Through this method, you can easily understand your average handle time taken and work on ways to improve it.
What is a good Average Handle Time for different sectors?
As per industry standards, 6 minutes is a good AHT for several sectors. According to a report by Cornell University, the AHT for different company sizes and sectors is as follows.
Sector & Company Size | Average Handling Time (Minutes) |
Large Business | 8.7 |
Telecommunications | 8.8 |
Retail | 5.4 |
Business & IT Services | 4.7 |
Financial Services | 4.7 |
And the average of these sectors is 6.46 minutes.
Once you have your Average Handle Time (AHT), Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) rate, and Net Promoter Score (NPS), you can determine the pace of your customer service and decide whether it’s a good or a poor score.
What causes High AHT? And the Importance of decreasing AHT?
The following reasons are responsible for causing high AHT:
1. Lack of experience among the customer service representatives
2. Lack of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) or any automation system
3. Not spending enough time reviewing calls and processes
4. Not monitoring agent performance and customer satisfaction
It is essential to improve AHT for better business development, as well as for customer experience & relationships. This can be done by Getting a 360 Degree overview of your customers and improving the technical aspects of your contact center to overcome the challenges faced as given above.
Simple Tips to reduce AHT
The following are some tips to improve AHT within the contact center:
1. Improvise Agent training
2. Collate a high AHT agent with a low AHT agent for a better learning experience
3. Record calls and regularly monitor agent performance
4. Leverage workflow automation to reduce AHT
5. Review dashboard matrix statistics regularly
Technical aspects to Improve AHT
AHT can be improved and reduced by 50% by implementing the following automation:
1. The Automated Chat Solution
2. Implement knowledge management software to reduce average call handling time
3. Use the power of technology integration to resolve customer queries quickly
Role of CRM software to improve AHT
CRM software, such as Kapture, not only determines AHT but also helps keep track of customer service provided in a much broader way. It will adequately help give a better overall experience to both the contact center and the end-use consumers.
When the Average Handle Time is high or low, so is customer satisfaction (CSAT). Keeping track of the AHT regularly can be challenging and complex.
Consequently, AHT can be measured using customer relationship software (CRM) to manage your customer service efficiently and helps your business step forward in terms of customer relationships.
This software is specially built for contact center management and can effectively implement chatbot systems to reduce the AHT.
It is observed that a delighted customer whose concerns get resolved quickly contributes 2.4 times more revenue to the company than a partially satisfied customer. So, it is essential to maintain a customer satisfaction (CSAT) rate by improving the average handle time for substantial business growth.
By utilizing the right Customer Relationship Management software, customer relationship and retention for the brand and business can be improved incredibly.
So now, effectively level up your customer experiences by measuring and managing customer satisfaction matrices with Kapture.
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