Average Talk Time (ATT) is a metric that shows the average amount of time an customer support agent spends while interacting with a customer.
The formula by which ATT of a customer representative is calculated :
(total talktime of a agent)
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(total number of calls answered by the agent)
For example, an agent takes 10 calls and the total talk time of that 10 calls is 30 minutes. In this case, the ATT would be 3 minutes; meaning an average of 3 minutes spent with each customer.
For an inbound contact center, the lower ATT of an agent indicates the representative can handle and solve more queries in a shorter span of time. It also helps to determine the C-SAT of a process. Under the customer support industry, this is the reason why Average Talk Time (ATT) is considered as a major Key Performance Indicator (KPI).
Encourage agents to gather as much information as possible at the start of the call. This should be relevant and about the situation, in order to best resolve the issue instead of getting information filtering in throughout the call.
Problems can be caused by customers choosing the wrong options on the IVR. Carefully examine your IVR options and see if there is a way of avoiding these problems. Also, try to include regulation information within the IVR rather than agents to read and confirm information from scripts or training updates.
Allow agents with a high AHT to listen to calls of their colleagues with a low AHT to identify and plan where they can reduce their own average talk time.
Identify silent times and look at what is happening. Is the member of staff updating the system? Is the system responding?
Update the customer profile at the first point of contact. This way there is no confusion when giving feedback to the customer on services requested. Ensure that the caller history is up to date with all previous conversations with the customer, no matter what the agent has spoken to them. The inquiry can be picked up so that this is seamless to the customer. Staff can log on at different locations to reduce call handling time when a high volume of calls is being received.
Use the same member of staff to deal with callbacks from the original call. The customer will be talking to the same advisor and will feel more valued. That helps in the reduction of average talk time for an agent that performs well.