Who keeps you on the phone?

According to a study by New Zealand consultancy firm GreatOutcomes which measured Average Handling Time (AHT) in contact centres in 2009, it’s the utilities industry. The AHT for agents in that industry was523 seconds (8 minutes, 43 seconds).

In second place was the government sector with asignificantly lower AHT of 295 seconds (4 minutes, 55 seconds) followed by theIT and Helpdesk industry at 185 seconds (3 minutes, 5 seconds), the financialservices industry at 183 seconds (3 minutes, 3 seconds) and the automotiveindustry at 162 seconds (2 minutes, 42 seconds).

The metric AHT was measured in a survey answered by 47managers of distinct organisations representing a total of 72 contact centres(over half of those who responded had multiple contact centres). Across allindustries the AHT was 260 seconds (4 minutes, 20 seconds).

According to the survey AHT is used to measure an individualagent’s productivity: “AHT is a long-established contact centre metric thatprovides a measure of centre and individual agent efficiency. AHT is the totalamount of workload experienced by a contact centre per call,” the survey reads.

“AHT forms the cornerstone for all workforce managementcalculations, and is therefore a major driver of cost efficiency in terms ofstaffing. Staffing accounts for approximately 70% of most contact centrebudgets, making cost efficiency in staffing vital to any organisation.”

Another advantage of AHT is that it is easy tomeasure, as opposed to First Call Resolution, which is often determined via post-callsurveys and is therefore more likely to be an indication rather than anaccurate measurement.

Around two thirds of the centres who responded to the surveysaid they use AHT as a coaching tool, and half use it as a Key PerformanceIndicator (KPI). “There are valid arguments both for and against the use of AHTas a KPI. On one hand, it is good to have a strict focus on efficiency andcost-saving within a contact centre, but on the other, agents should not beheld to a set AHT as the quality of their call handling may suffer as they rusha call to ensure it is completed by a deadline,” the survey concludes.