I brought the aging cow to the meeting to ask the panel of experts whether they agreed with my conclusion - that the time had come to put old Bessie out to pasture. I explained that for many years she had been a reliable producer. I had to face facts - the milk being produced by my new, younger herd of bovines was of a higher quality and was preferred by our increasingly persnickety customers. The panel concurred - it was time for old Bessie to retire.
At last week's Contact Center Conference in Orlando I moderated a panel to discuss what has long been a sacred cow in the contact center management business - using AHT (average handle time) to measure agent performance.
AHT remains a popular agent performance metric. According to my recent benchmarking survey, 44% of the respondents said they relied on AHT to evaluate agent performance.
The three highly-regarded experts on the panel - Brian Flagg, Sr. Client Executive, Cincom, Kimberly Mitchell, President, InterWeave, and Connie Smith, VP Operations, Clarity Health Services weighed in on the subject, as did a the majority of the managers and executives in the audience that day.
It didn't take long to realize that "banning AHT" as an agent performance metric was a very hot topic. After an hour (the time allotted) the group was just getting started and could have easily gone on for an hour or two more.
Here are a few of the takeaways from the lively discussion:
- AHT should not be abandoned entirely. While it may no longer be appropriate as an agent performance metric, AHT remains a valuable behind-the-scenes operational metric.
- Requiring agents to adhere to a specific handle time sends a contradictory message - do you want it right? or, do you want it fast?
- When managers are overly concerned with handle time there are unintended, costly consequences - call quality suffers, as does customer satisfaction. First call resolution rates plummet and operating costs rise.
- A surprising number of managers said they do not use AHT to measure agent performance - and never have.
- When supervisors manage by the numbers, as one panelist put it, "...they are not doing their job."
- Supervisors who "beat agents up" over handle time and other metrics, will need training in how to communicate with their agents differently; to learn to identify and coach the call-handling behaviors that actually drive the numbers.
- As one panelist pointed out, whatever metrics you use should be tailored to your particular business. There isn't a universal, "one-size-fits-all" set of metrics.
By the end of the panel discussion, the verdict was clear - it was time to move this sacred cow out to pasture.
- Look for the next Monday Aha!s (5/14 & 5/28) in which I discuss the AHT survey results including the business reasons contact centers decided to do away with AHT as an agent performance metric and the top three metrics managers choose to replace AHT.
- To Complete the survey.
- See the Monday Aha! from 4/18, the first in the series on measuring agent performance.
Copyright 2012 Barbara Burke. All rights reserved.