Talk Times and Talk Tracks

[jwg12]

I manage a small group of technical support reps, and a problem that has recently developed in rising talk times. This is certainly due in part to new people being on the phones, but I was interested in establishing a set of standard protocols that would be followed for each call. The problem is we want to avoid sound like a recording. The protocol would be as simple as a set of basic questions that should be able to be answered quickly, but that will provide valuable information that can be used in trouble shooting the issue quickly and effectively. Does anyone have any experience with this? Thank you.

[cjw17]

To truly tackle rising talk times, you need to do some analysis to figure out what's causing the issue. Some agents will on average have shorter than others...you'll need to listen to the calls to determine the difference.
We undertook this initiative last year & dropped our talktime by over a minute. We used an on-line screen scraping technology to see what agents were doing during calls. Our on-line help system has been updated to make it easier for agents to find information quickly. We also developed almost 100 form letters that cover our most common procedures. In our business, many of our customers would rather have complex procedures in writing than listen to a 6 minute phone call & try to remember everything that was said. So all the agent has to do is ask the right questions & send a letter.
About 6 months into this, we had a pretty good idea of what was a reasonable talk time. We had agents who ranged from on average 3 1/2 minutes to over 11 minutes. We set a performance standard at 5 minutes & our supervisors were directed to manage their agents to that. Agents who were continually over that were coached until they got to the 5 minutes. Some agents use hold a lot & have a high hold time. You need to look at that too...why are they putting people on hold & what are they doing while on hold? There may be activities that can be better performed by an administrative person.
when undertaking a talktime reduction initiative, you need to pay particular attention to make sure quality doesn't suffer. The agents need to be efficient, but can't leave out anything important to your caller.

[RickB]

Just to weigh in:

Often times AHT (you have to consider all elements - talk, hold and after call work) reduction programs DO drive poor quality calls and or a reduction in single contact / real time resolution. I urge you not to get caught up in the "time game" and take a more Zen like approach - all things are connected. Don't just look at "Mary's" relative AHT (broken out into it's parts) but also her Quality, SCR / RTR, Sales (if you have that component) and her personal stats around associate satisfaction and attendance.

I would also recommend that you use control charts to establish if your system of AHT performance is in balance. If it is you can use tools such as fishbone analysis and MBF to lower your over-all performance times (keeping in mind the Zen statement above). If your system is not in balance you can zero in on those outside the UC and LC limits to find special and common cause.

An important fact to consider (and this from 20 + years of benchmarking and SPC) - you can not improve performance until your system is in balance.

Finally, don't (Please, Please Don't) get caught up in a Rank and Score culture in exclusion of control charts. It never ceases to amaze me when people rank order a group of X without realizing the simple truth that in ANY group of ten there must be a #1 and a # 10. This tells you nothing about anything. Use control charts to place performance in perspective and determine stability. Only than will you have the opportunity to discover best demonstrated practices amongst your agents and obtain SUSTAIN performance improvements.

Rick