What does AHT mean in GENERAL

Average handling time (AHT) is the total amount of time an agent spends with a customer during a service interaction, from opening the ticket to closing it. It includes all activities performed by the agent in support of the customer such as looking up information, solving problems, and any additional tasks that may come up. AHT helps businesses measure how long it takes for customers to be served and how productive their agents are at providing service.

By calculating AHT, you can determine where your service could use improvement. If your agents have to spend too much time helping each individual customer, then that means they're not being as efficient as they could be. On the other hand, if your AHT is too low then this might indicate that some issues are not being addressed properly. Optimizing your AHT will help you provide better service to customers in a more efficient manner.

There are several factors that can influence AHT such as the quality of training for agents, complexity of questions asked by customers, and difficulty of possible solutions available for agents. The availability of resources that can assist agents during interactions also affects AHT positively or negatively depending on how accessible they are at any given moment.

This depends greatly on what type of business you operate and what kind of services you provide. Generally speaking though, most businesses prefer to keep their AHT below five minutes per call in order to ensure maximum efficiency and productivity while still providing quality customer service.

The best way to measure your team's average handling time is by tracking each interaction that takes place with customers and taking note of when it began and when it ended so that you can calculate the total duration for each session individually. From there, you can add up these individual sessions and divide them by the number of interactions in order to determine an accurate overall AHT statistic for your team.

You don't necessarily need special software or hardware - however if you're looking for an easy solution then investing in one might be beneficial in terms of accuracy and convenience when tracking these numbers over time. If not, then simple pen-and-paper monitoring should do just fine!

Depending on what type of business you operate and how quickly things tend to change in your industry, it might be best practice to track your team's AHT either weekly or monthly so that any changes or improvements can be detected easily while still accounting for any seasonal variations which may occur throughout the year.

External factors like weather patterns or economic trends may affect certain industries more than others but generally speaking these external influences would have a minimal impact on how long it takes for customers to receive assistance from agents within those industries.

Some strategies which may help reduce overall average handling times include offering self-service options such as FAQs and tutorials so customers may resolve simpler enquiries without needing assistance from agents; streamlining processes through automation so tasks which require manual input can be completed faster; investing in agent training programs so they have access to better problem-solving skills; providing proper resources like knowledge bases or 3rd party applications which assist them in performing their duties most efficiently; and implementing feedback mechanisms after every service encounter so issues experienced by customers are immediately identified.

Yes! Other important metrics commonly tracked include First Contact Resolution Rate (FCR), Cost Per Contact (CPC), Satisfaction Score (CSAT) among others which all ultimately provide insight into how well a company's Customer Service teams are performing on a daily basis.

It's important not only to track this metric but also understand why certain issues take longer than expected or why certain resolutions work better than others — this allows companies small changes over time that improve overall productivity without sacrificing quality customer experience.