XALEON BLOG

What Is Average Handling Time and How Can Co-Browsing Help

Ziad Hussien
3 min Read
Apr 5, 2020

Customers get irritated when their problem is not solved quickly. To understand if you can provide fast and effective customer service, you need a yardstick to analyze your success. It is at this point that you require Average Handling Time.

In this post, we will define Average Handling Time, why it is so essential in business, and how companies can use a Co-browsing solution to minimize it.

What is Average Handling Time (AHT)?

Average Handling Time is a customer service indicator that is used to measure the average time a support team takes to process a customer request. It also includes the total waiting time or action time until the customer requests are resolved.

Why Average Handling Time is Critical in Business

Average Handling Time is an impressive customer service tool that indicates how long an agent spends in solving a given problem and how many customers he can handle per day. Of course, in the long run, nobody likes an Average Handling Time that is too long, not you and certainly not your clients.

On the other hand, a low-level AHT does not indicate that your service team offers better support. If you put pressure on your agents to limit the amount of time they spend with every client at all costs, they can provoke clients, and rush them off regardless of whether or not their problems are solved.

Reduction in the AHT will result in dissatisfaction of customers, and this also affects other indicators, such as problem resolution at first call and increases the number of dissatisfied calls. Above all, it can affect the overall customer satisfaction rates regardless of what indicators you use.

The Best Way to Minimize Average Handling Time

Many companies are trying to find better ways to minimize their Average Handling Time. They create resources for personal engagement, such as blogs, FAQs, or knowledge base depending on what they choose to call it. Additionally, they recruit and train various customer service agents and try to improve their team’s processes in different ways. They also use customer service technological tools that offer the customer service team an advanced technical solution for effective service delivery, such as safe Co-Browsing or Screen Sharing.

What’s Collaborative Browsing (Co-Browsing)?

Co-Browsing or shared navigation is a secured customer support tool that allows the customer service agent to view and interact with a customer’s on-screen browser in real-time, requiring NO downloads or installations. After gaining access to the screen, the support representative can identify the issue, analyze it, and facilitate the resolution with the customer.

How Does Co-Browsing Help You Minimize Average Handling Time?

Regardless of what means of communication, whether you’re using email, telephone lines, or LiveChat, Co-Browsing improves your customer service efficiency. Your support agents will not only provide the fastest customer service, but they will also offer the most efficient service that will put your company above the competition.

Let’s look at some of the ways Co-Browsing can help you minimize your Average Handling Time:

  • It Ensures Quick Identification of the Problem

Consider the number of hours your support professionals can save if they had enough context. It is often difficult for a customer service representative to see what is happening on the customers’ end. As a result, most of the valuable time is spent solving the problem. However, with Co-Browsing, the agent can access the customers’ browsers directly to identify the problem and resolve it quickly.

  • It Ensures Complete Resolution of the Problem at the first call

The ugly part of the customer service task is that not all customer inquiries can be resolved on the first call. It can sometimes take a few calls for the issue to be completely resolved. However, with Co-Browsing, these continuous problems and time-wasting dilemmas can be avoided in real-time.

Conclusion

Co-Browsing solution does not only help to minimize Average Handling Time, but it puts your support team technologically ahead of the industry competition and improves the overall experience and satisfaction of your customers.

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Ziad Hussien

In his dynamic role as Head of Content at Xaleon, Ziad is known for his tenacity and passion for shaping the future of company-customer communication. In this blog, Ziad shares his insights on how to improve and deliver the best possible customer experience when being in touch with customers digitally. Outside of Xaleon, he is an avid reader, blogger, pianist, poet, and a proud husband.

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