In customer service, every second counts. Contact centers all over the world are facing growing pressure to handle more calls in less time while maintaining great customer experiences. Despite the high bar, using artificial intelligence (AI) in call centers has fundamentally transformed how human agents interact with callers, increasing efficiency without sacrificing quality.
As customer expectations continue to soar, the companies that will rise to the occasion are those that use AI solutions to optimize their call center operations and empower their teams with AI tools that make their jobs less stressful and more productive.
Why Is Average Handle Time Important?
Average handle time (AHT) is the total duration of a customer interaction, including talking to the customer, any time spent on hold, and after-call work. This metric directly reflects operational efficiency and impacts staffing requirements, cost per contact, and overall customer engagement.
When AHT is too high, it can mean longer, frustrating wait times for other customers. On the other hand, too short a call could leave the caller feeling snubbed. Excessively low AHT might indicate agents are rushing through customer calls without properly addressing their needs. AHT benchmarks differ across industries, but affect them all in the same way.
To illustrate, the average handle times for some of the largest industries are:
- Retail: 3.41 minutes
- Telecommunications: 2.56 minutes
- Healthcare: 3.38 minutes
- Financial Services: 4.01 minutes
How AI Can Improve Call Centers
AI-powered call center solutions are upending contact center operations in the best ways possible. By supporting agents throughout the customer journey and streamlining what would otherwise be time-consuming workflows, call center agents can focus on value while the AI technology handles speed.
Rather than replacing live agents, contact center AI platforms and the advancements they offer work with the agent to tackle customer inquiries in the most effective, professional, and informative way possible. Strategically implementing AI and machine learning across your call center can dramatically reduce AHT while simultaneously improving the quality of the call and other industry benchmarks and KPIs.
Helps Agents During the Call in Real Time
Conversational AI platforms are designed with agents in mind, working alongside them, not in place of them, to reduce stress, ease cognitive load, and help them feel more confident in every interaction. They analyze customer interactions in real time using natural language processing (NLP), providing suggestions and relevant information exactly when agents need it. These agent-assist systems detect customer sentiment and intent, then automatically recommend the next best action to help resolve inquiries without lengthy searches or holds.
When customers ask tough questions or bring up complex issues, the AI platform instantly scans knowledge bases and similar previous calls to provide accurate answers. This helps create continuity between contact center agents and prevents customers from receiving different advice.
Takes Care of Tasks After the Call
AI systems listen to entire conversations and automatically generate comprehensive call transcripts and summaries so agents can focus fully on the next customer. This automation eliminates time-consuming repetitive tasks like manual note-taking and data entry, while also highlighting appropriate follow-up actions based on the conversation, such as sending confirmation emails or updating customer data.
Makes Daily Tasks Easier
AI-driven platforms help call centers consolidate information from multiple systems into a single, intuitive CRM interface and can be set to display only what’s most relevant to the current customer interaction.
Repetitive tasks and multi-step processes that previously required human oversight and manual entry can now be condensed into a simple, algorithm-based workflow. This allows agents to activate automated processes while keeping their focus on the customer conversation.
Spots Factors That Slow Down Calls
Advanced AI can evaluate thousands of calls, including sentiment analysis, customer intent, inquiry type, call location, and time of day, to identify common patterns that lead to extended handle times or frustrated customers.
When conversations begin to show signs of excessive length or complications, real-time insights can notify call center managers or provide immediate guidance to agents before calls get out of hand.
Sends Calls Directly to the Right Agent
Intelligent call routing with virtual agents can analyze a customer’s history and inquiry and direct each call to the most qualified available representative from the start. Natural language processing allows the system to understand why a customer is calling before they even speak to a live agent, leading to more accurate solutions, shorter call resolution time, and immediate problem-solving. Your customers won’t be needlessly bounced around, and your agents will be well-equipped for every incoming call.
Keeps Info Accessible to Agents
Knowledge bases powered by generative AI can instantly pull up relevant FAQs, policies, and procedures based on the ongoing conversation. When agents encounter unfamiliar situations and scenarios, the agent’s AI platform will jump in and provide step-by-step instructions to guide them through complex processes with on-screen information and talking points without disrupting the conversation with the caller.
Standard Call vs. AI
Traditional calls often include lengthy authentication processes, multiple holds while agents search for information, and extended after-call work that limits the agent’s availability to take new calls. With voice-recognition verification, immediate resource retrieval, and automated transcription, AI reduces or outright eliminates these manual workflows, leading to less friction and happier customers.
How Observe.AI Helps You Lower AHT
Observe.AI’s comprehensive platform offers multiple use cases specifically designed to reduce average handle time while maintaining or even improving quality assurance and customer satisfaction. By implementing our tools, your contact center can achieve significant gains in operational efficiency and agent performance. We’ve helped over 350 enterprises reduce their AHT time by 23% and improved post-call satisfaction score by 8% across the board.
Our interactive voice response systems (IVRs) and conversational AI create smoother experiences for callers while gathering the information your agents need before they even join the conversation. Once an agent has joined the call, our AI-powered bots will continue to listen to the customer conversation as it happens and provide suggested responses and relevant resources to your agents in real time.
While all that is happening, predictive analytics anticipate customer needs before they’re expressed and identify specific customer behavior that contributes to longer handle times so that your agent is prepared to handle the inquiry as quickly and effectively as possible. With transcription and data entry handled automatically after the call, your agent can move on to helping the next caller or use the saved time for other necessary tasks throughout their day.
Update Your Call Center With AI
As customer expectations rise and contact centers have to do more with less, an ideal average handle time can positively affect operational costs and improve customer retention. However, not all strategies are created equal. Reducing AHT through traditional methods often comes at the expense of customer satisfaction. The solution you need is AI.
Observe.AI shortens handle times by making agents more effective rather than forcing them to rush. By providing self-service options, automating time-consuming tasks, and highlighting actionable insights, our scalable platform improves efficiency and quality simultaneously.
The contact center of tomorrow is defined not by how quickly agents can end calls, but by how effectively they can resolve customer issues. With our chatbots and algorithms handling the heavy lifting of identity authentication, information gathering, real-time recommendations and prompts, and after-call work, agents are free to focus on truly understanding customer needs and delivering personalized experiences that build loyalty and trust.
