Are Contact Centres Creating Their Own Vulnerable Customer Failures?

Marianne Withers at Scorebuddy explores how contact centres can unintentionally cause vulnerable customer failures and what may be contributing to them.

The Message Behind an Individual AHT Target

Average Handle Time (AHT) is often treated as a straightforward measure of agent efficiency. An interaction takes a certain amount of time, and lower handling times can therefore appear to indicate better performance.

The problem comes when that number becomes the main instruction given to an individual agent.

A target can quickly change the way an agent approaches a customer conversation. Instead of focusing on understanding the issue and reaching the right outcome, there can be pressure to bring the interaction to an end within a particular timeframe.

That can create some difficult behaviours. Agents may rush conversations, avoid exploring the underlying reason for a customer’s contact, or transfer an interaction simply because it is taking longer than expected.

None of this means AHT has no value. At an operational level, it can help contact centres understand demand, workforce requirements and changes in interaction complexity. The concern is what happens when an operational measure becomes an individual performance objective.

A five-minute interaction is not automatically better than a ten-minute interaction. If the longer conversation resolves the customer’s problem first time, while the shorter one results in another contact, the AHT figure alone tells very little about which interaction was more successful.

The focus therefore needs to move away from asking agents to minimise time and towards understanding what is happening within that time.

Looking Beyond Handling Time

There are several measures that can provide a more complete picture of contact centre performance.

First Contact Resolution can show whether customers are getting their issues resolved without needing to make contact again. Customer satisfaction can provide an indication of how the interaction was experienced. Quality assessments can examine whether the correct processes were followed and whether the agent demonstrated the behaviours expected by the organisation.

These measures become much more useful when viewed together.

For example, an agent with a higher AHT may also have strong customer satisfaction, high quality scores and excellent resolution rates.

Another agent may have a particularly low AHT but generate repeat contacts because conversations are being brought to a close too quickly.

Neither scenario can be properly understood through handling time alone.

This is why AHT is better treated as one piece of operational information rather than a standalone definition of good performance.

Looking at the relationship between different measures can reveal much more about what is actually happening during customer interactions.

Why Measurement Alone is Not Enough

A scorecard can identify that something is happening, but it cannot have a conversation with an agent about why it is happening.

That distinction matters when performance data is being used to manage people.

If an agent’s AHT suddenly increases, for example, there could be numerous explanations. The agent may be dealing with more complicated customer issues, supporting colleagues, handling a new process, or struggling with a particular type of interaction.

The number itself cannot explain the reason.

This is where effective coaching becomes important. Managers need to be able to look beyond the metric, examine the underlying interactions and have a meaningful conversation with the individual involved.

Performance management should therefore be less about reacting to a number and more about understanding the story behind it.

Data remains valuable, but it works best as a starting point for investigation and coaching rather than an automatic instruction for agents to change their behaviour.

The Missing Investment in Team Leaders

Team leaders have a significant influence over how performance measures are interpreted and applied, yet they can easily become overlooked when organisations invest in technology, processes and reporting.

That creates a potential gap.

Agents may have access to detailed performance information, while the people responsible for helping them improve do not always receive the same level of support and development.

Team leaders need more than dashboards showing whether targets have been met. They need the skills to interpret performance information, identify the reasons behind it and decide what type of support an individual requires.

This becomes particularly important when measures such as AHT are used alongside quality, customer and employee metrics.

Without the right coaching skills, there is a risk that managers simply pass performance targets down to agents. A conversation about performance can then become focused on explaining why a number is too high or too low, rather than understanding what could be changed and why.

Developing team leaders can therefore have a direct impact on how effectively performance data is used.

Leadership Needs to Match The Situation

Not every agent needs the same type of management.

Some employees may need clear direction, particularly when learning a new process or dealing with a performance issue. Others may benefit more from guidance and coaching, while experienced and confident agents may need greater autonomy.

A useful leadership approach recognises these differences rather than applying one management style to everyone.

Performance information can help team leaders understand where an individual may need support, but the response should depend on the circumstances behind the data.

For example, an experienced agent who understands the process but is struggling with a new type of customer interaction may need coaching rather than closer supervision. Someone new to the role may require more structured direction while they build their knowledge and confidence.

This makes performance management much more than simply monitoring whether targets have been achieved.

The role of the team leader is to understand what is preventing an agent from performing effectively and provide the appropriate level of support to address it.

Giving Managers The Right Tools to Lead

Contact centre leaders have access to more performance data than ever, but more information does not automatically lead to better management.

The challenge is turning that information into useful conversations.

Rather than focusing narrowly on whether an agent has achieved an AHT target, managers can look at a wider set of indicators and consider what they reveal about the customer experience, quality and employee performance.

That also means creating enough space for team leaders to coach their people properly.

When managers are expected to monitor multiple measures, complete administrative tasks and maintain operational performance, coaching can easily become something that happens only when there is a problem.

A stronger approach places development at the centre of the team leader role. Metrics can then be used to identify opportunities for improvement, while coaching provides the human element needed to understand and address them.

Ultimately, the objective is not to remove AHT from contact centre reporting. It is to ensure that a single number does not become a substitute for understanding agent performance.

This version is deliberately much more structurally different — it doesn’t follow the original sentence-by-sentence argument, removes all first-person language, and develops the ideas through a broader discussion of measurement, coaching and leadership rather than simply rephrasing the source.

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This post has been re-published by kind permission of ScorebuddyCX - view the original article.

Call Centre Helper is not responsible for the content of these guest blog posts. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of Call Centre Helper.

Reviewed by: Robyn Coppell