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Dear Affy,
My agents’ Agent Hold Time (AHT) is climbing out of control and we have a mandate to reduce our costs by creating efficiency on our calls. Do you have any ideas on how to help my agents?
Living in chaos, Cynthia
Dear Cynthia
It is so interesting to see AHT bubble up again to the top of the list of cost reduction strategies. It is not surprising as a one second reduction of AHT can translate to a reduction of 1 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) to 15 FTEs! In our industry, full on focus for higher productivity happens when AHT is out of control.
Also typical is a knee jerk reaction to push agents to reduce time without truly understanding root causes. We very often hear front line leaders set targets and if the agent is lucky, the specific behaviour that needs to change.
We all know that agents are very resourceful and will find a way to meet expectations if not given proper support, coaching and direction. This approach certainly can provide a short term gain but there is a price to pay in declining customer satisfaction and lost sales opportunities in the long term.
World class leadership, however, coaches to specific agent behaviours and not to numbers. A natural conversation where you lead your agent to owning a specific behavioural change and getting her excited about doing things differently will give you sustainable results.
These behavioural changes have positive cross impacts to revenue, productivity and satisfaction all at the same time. This ultimately drives results that all companies want to see – higher revenue, productivity and customer satisfaction.
At SwitchGear, the quick start method to lowering AHT begins with some diagnostics. If you are a regular follower of this column, you will likely remember our mantra - take time to “diagnose” the problem well before you “prescribe” a solution.
Sitting with top performers
Therefore, before you jump to coaching, take time to understand your team’s holistic performance measures (not just AHT) as well as AHT components that are outside of the “norm” by agent. Prioritize your side-by-side sessions by sitting with agents who are top performers in all areas as well as those who may need your help.
By sitting with these top performers, you will be able to harvest techniques and ways that you can share with others, otherwise known as best practices. Be sure to note the specifics – WHAT the agent said /did, WHEN she said/did it and HOW she said/did it. By being this specific, you can then easily share with other agents and get a repeatable outcome.
For those agents who are struggling, by sitting side-by-side during their workday and comparing their behaviours to your top performers, you will quickly discover the root cause of your agent’s challenges. Once you’ve diagnosed the SPECIFIC behaviours that contribute to AHT, you should select the ONE behaviour to work on first.
Even though you may know what needs to change, we recommend use of specific coaching techniques to lead agents to self discovery of what and how to make the changes. You will not see change unless agents want to make the change and your job as a leader is to make them want it. Getting a commitment is easy after that!
A follow up conversation on the same day as the coaching session will reinforce your commitment and interest in setting your agent up for success. When it is all said and done, you will be surprised how energized and excited your agent will be with her coaching session.
The response we get from most agents is that they finally have something tangible in their hands to work with! I have to tell you that we repeatedly see extraordinary results using this method.
Three key steps
Again, Cynthia, there is no instant cure for reducing AHT overnight. Rather, it takes three key steps:
- Have a keen eye for identifying best practices from top performers
- Find root cause through good diagnostics
- And most importantly, use a systematic coaching methodology to be able to share those best practices in a way that agents can understand and clearly see will add value. If you approach this AHT challenge one agent at a time and one behaviour at a time, I am confident that you will see a dramatic improvement in your team’s AHT in a very short time.
Afshan Bye |
