Average handling time: necessary evil or familiar friend?

In our industry, yesterday’s trailblazers are today’s dinosaurs, says Gary Moss, of Sage UK.  However, average handling time (AHT) remains with us.  Here, he discusses the challenges it poses

IN TODAY’S call centres there are considerable pressures to perform, whether it’s the need for recruitment to provide a steady pipeline of talent, operations to deliver quality and efficiency in equal measure or marketing to ensure ever greater interest in a product or service.

At the heart of these goals should always be the customer, which will undoubted creates challenges on all levels around the balancing of cost and revenue.

We resource planners are not immune to these pressures.

The constant requirement to come up with new and creative planning methodologies is an expected and generally accepted part of our day-to-day role.  In an industry where yesterday’s trailblazers are today’s dinosaurs there is still one fundamental reality that pervades everything we do:

Calls x average handling time = workload

Having worked across a number of different types of operation over the last 10 years, I have faced many challenges over resource planning methodology.

In some businesses the resource plan is seen as the roadmap to world class service, structured to deliver the leanest and most disciplined level of performance in order to ensure the cost/revenue ratio is maintained to the healthiest possible standard.  This, of course, requires the people to deliver consistency with the same measure of discipline and dedication. In other operations the challenge has been to mould the resource plan around the people within the operation, ensuring that the happiness of the workforce is maintained in order for this positive feeling to cascade lovingly onto the customer.

Targets that ensure stretch for high performers but leave room for development of those who are not quite there

I have always tried to meet these varied challenges head-on and with an open mind.  However, I would be misleading you if I claimed I had delivered unbounded success in every area.

The bottom line always seems to remain the same, though: how do I get the right people answering the right calls at the right time?

Schedule adherence (a phrase that can strike fear into the most resolute of operations managers) has seemingly fallen in influence over the last few years, with many call centres choosing to trust their workforce to adhere willingly to the schedule without the need for a target metric.  This modern attitude has ignited many an interesting conversation among resource planners, with no general consensus at present.

On the other hand, average handling time seems to be a far more difficult animal to tame and seemingly has a far greater reaching hand.

In order to create a people requirement for our businesses we absolutely have to forecast our call volume and handling time for every type of inbound call. This may seem a sweeping statement.  However, the mere fact that the majority of resource planning tools and models still utilise formulae named in honour of the Danish engineer Agner Erlang (the originator of traffic engineering and queuing theory) more than 50 years ago would indicate that the thinking behind these assumptions is relatively sound

Therefore the importance of an accurate and tested average handling time would seem to be set in stone.  Or is it?

A growing number of operations are challenging average handling time as a key performance indicator, particularly when pertaining to the performance management of agents: “Why continue to heap this pressure on our people, it only prevents them from improving their level of quality and customer focus?”

Referring back to the importance of the customer -- we should always have their interests at heart – however, do we assume too much when we insist that the time spent talking to them is unimportant providing the service is accurate and maintains perceived excellence?

In light of the fact the previous three paragraphs have ended with a question mark, I feel compelled to provide some answers.

Calculating workload will remain at the core of resource planning for some years and thus it must remain as a key metric, if not for the individual then at least at a skill and enterprise level. In order to meet customer demand as well as budget constraints then operations must work towards a common target or alternatively face the possibility of paying a quarterly visit to the board to request further funding for staff.  And if board members are generous enough to meet this cost at every interval then ultimately the shareholder may be the one to foot the bill.

And so to the customer.

Nearly all customers calling a call centre do so for functional reasons: they want to get something done, even if it is just to get advice.  Therefore, it would be prudent to satisfy this need in the most courteous and efficient manner possible and the average handling time can deliver this. This is not to say that all calls should be cut off at an absolute moment -- the clue is in the moniker, it’s an AVERAGE.  Provided the right management information cut across all customer demographics has been analysed, the establishment of a realistic average handling time target can be attained.  Therefore, the crux of the matter is management information... demand the statistics, perform the analysis and trust your conclusions.

Finally there are the people, AKA the agents, AKA the technicians, AKA the customer managers...the list is endless.  In my experience this arm of the workforce would, on the whole, be delighted with the complete abolition of the AHT target.  However in the majority of environments where this is unlikely they will gladly settle for a target that is fair, so give it to them.

Set achievable targets that ensure stretch for high performers but leave room for development of those who are not quite there and guarantee quality coaching time to ensure that any training needs are addressed and that above all the customer is getting the courteous, friendly service they deserve.

Is average handling time a necessary evil or a familiar friend?  In all fairness, it’s probably both.

PROFILE

Gary Moss is senior customer services manager – resource at Sage UK.   His first resource planning role was as resource scheduler for Barclays Bank its Liverpool call centre.  In 2005, Mr Moss was appointed resource planning manager for the bank’s Manchester and Coventry call centres.  He left Barclays in 2007, after 11 years, to become global planning manager for Shell Oil IT support, a 24-hour “follow-the-sun’” operation with helpdesks in Asia, the US and the UK. Mr Moss joined Sage UK in 2009 as senior resource planning manager: customer services in the small business division.

Sage provides business software, services and support to small and medium sized businesses. A global company, it has 6.2m customers and more than 13,100 employees.  Sage UK’s site in North Park, Newcastle, has 1,000-plus staff, around 300 of whom sit in the small business division: customer services wing.