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“Your call is important to us.”
When your customers hear that, do they believe it? The longer you make them wait, the less important they feel.
Knowing how long it takes to answer customer calls can help you answer that question, and Average Wait Time (AWT) is a contact center key performance indicator for just that reason.
But what exactly is contact center AWT, and how can you reduce it to ensure customer calls are answered quickly and effectively?
What Is Contact Center Average Wait Time?
Contact center AWT, also known as the average speed of answer (ASA), is the average time an inbound call spends waiting in a queue or waiting for a callback if that feature is active in your interactive voice response (IVR) system. AWT can be measured globally across the contact center by queue, skillset, agent group, agent, or phone number.
This differs from average handle time (AHT), the average time an agent takes to complete a call or customer interaction. A related contact center metric is the call abandonment rate, which is the percentage of customers who hang up before reaching a representative.
AWT for a given period can be calculated by dividing the total number of agent-answered calls by the total time callers spent in the queue. If a call center received 100,000 seconds of queue and ring time and agents answered 4,000 calls in one day, the AWT for that day would be 25 seconds.
Because AWT calculates the average wait time for a contact center, some customers may have shorter or longer experiences. An AWT of 25 seconds doesn’t necessarily mean every call is answered in precisely 25 seconds.
Average Wait Time in an Omnichannel World
The traditional contact center industry standard service level is 80/20, or 80% of calls are answered within 20 seconds. In today’s omnichannel world, you might be inclined to think this standard isn’t as important as it used to be. Most customers prefer to use live chat, email, or social media, right?
Not quite.
While it’s true that non-phone channels are popular avenues, talking to a live agent is still one of consumers' most preferred methods for help and support – across all generations. Ninety-four percent of Baby Boomers, 86% of Gen Xers, 81% of Millennials, and 71% of Gen Zers said they’re likely to reach out to customer care by live phone when they haven’t resolved their issue through self-service options.
In other words, the personal touch of a phone call is still important – even in an omnichannel world.
The Benefits of Reducing Contact Center AWT
AWT is more than just a ratio or standard. It’s a helpful way to evaluate the efficiency of your agents and the quality of your customer service. Understanding AWT gives you insights into your contact center’s performance and ways it can be improved.
- Resource management: Monitoring AWT can identify peak times during a call center’s operations, allowing staffing levels and schedules to be adjusted accordingly.
- Cost efficiency: Long wait times and high abandonment rates add up to increased AHT and elevated cost-per-call. Reducing AWT means less time – and money – spent per call.
- Customer satisfaction: Long holds lead to lost customers. Conversely, customers who quickly reach an agent are happier with their experience, improving loyalty and retention.
By monitoring and managing AWT in your contact center, you can develop a balanced approach that maintains your business’s competitive edge while providing enhanced experiences for your agents and customers.
3 Ways to Reduce Average Wait Time
AWT is a key indicator of your contact center's health, giving you a big-picture assessment of your IVR optimization, agent performance, and more. Addressing any of these factors can help reduce AWT and abandoned calls, but sometimes, the answer isn’t as simple as getting your numbers down.
Here are a few tips that can help your call center reduce long hold times:
1. Optimize Your Contact Center Call Queue
IVR can make or break the customer experience. Confusing option tree calls routed to the wrong recipients, or misread inputs lead to frustrated customers and abandoned calls.
Test your IVR to ensure all callers can quickly reach the correct department, minimizing the time they spend waiting for an agent who might have to transfer the call anyway. You can also implement callback options, so customers can choose to remain on the line or have an agent reach out later.
2. Change Up Your Workforce Management Strategy
Agents who can handle calls faster and more efficiently can better resolve their customers’ needs, leading to higher rates of first-call resolution and better customer satisfaction. Additionally, if representatives are empowered to monitor their own queue numbers, they may be incentivized to reduce call times when queues are above a certain threshold.
Monitoring contact center volumes can help you allocate resources more efficiently, ensuring more agents are available during busy times and lowering staffing numbers during lulls. Of course, if you feel your quality management is already as good as it can be, it might be time to hire more agents or provide additional training.
3. Relax Your Contact Center Service Level
Sometimes, the key to improving the customer experience is not rushing to reduce your AWT but providing superior service by resolving issues and not rushing calls.
Suppose your contact center metrics show you can relax your service level from 80/20 to 80/60 or even more with a negligible impact on abandonment rate. In that case, there might be other areas where you can provide customers with a better experience.
Improving AWT in Your Contact Center
Reducing the average wait time for your callers is an important factor in reducing the total time it takes agents to resolve their needs and raising their overall satisfaction. The right omnichannel contact center platform gives you insights into your operations so you can create exceptional experiences for your customers.
Contact a Mitel expert to learn more about ways to monitor and improve AWT in your contact center.
