Measure Where Handling Time Is Spent Between Systems

Pyze measures what agents do between the contact and the resolution, then measures what an agent absorbed once it is deployed.

4
systems typically touched per contact
~50%
of handling time between systems, not inside them
1 week
to instrument
Per person
measurement instead of team averages

Engagement archetypes from Pyze deployments across contact centre and case handling operations rather than a single named account.

The contact platform records the interaction and the case system records the outcome. Neither records the searching, checking and swivelling in between, and that is what determines how long the contact took and where an agent belongs.

Common Findings in Customer Service

Four patterns that recur across engagements, each shown with the measurement and the resulting change.

We manage average handling time closely and it has not moved in two years.

Standardize
What the measurement shows

The average conceals a wide spread by contact type and by person. The people worth coaching are not the ones the average identifies.

What changes

Technique compared against the top quartile on comparable contacts, so coaching goes to a specific behaviour rather than to a number.

Agents swivel between four systems to answer one question.

Simplify
What the measurement shows

The interval between systems is the largest single component of handling time, larger than the work inside any one system.

What changes

The most expensive hand-offs are consolidated, which is a smaller change than replacing any of the systems and a faster one.

We deployed a virtual agent and handling time went up.

Agentify
What the measurement shows

The agent absorbed the contacts that resolve at first pass and left the ones that do not. Higher handling time is an expected result in the first month of a working deployment.

What changes

Absorbed, assisted and retained measured separately, so the deployment is judged on released capacity rather than on an average it will make worse.

After-call work takes up handling time and is not measured.

Agentify
What the measurement shows

Wrap-up is substantially templated and reproduces values already present in the interaction record.

What changes

The summary is assembled from the record and the agent reviews it rather than writing it.

Opportunity Register

A sample register, sorted by the lever that resolves each opportunity. In an engagement, each line carries measured hours, a named owner and the evidence it was derived from.

Status and account queries
Agentify
Answered from the record rather than retrieved by a person.
After-call work
Agentify
Wrap-up assembled from the interaction, reviewed by the agent.
Cross-system swivel removal
Simplify
The most expensive hand-offs consolidated.
Escalation triage
Agentify
Classified against stated criteria, ambiguity escalated.
Knowledge retrieval
Automate
Surfaced against the contact rather than searched for.
Disposition consistency
Standardize
One documented taxonomy applied consistently.
Onboarding to competence
Standardize
Training aimed where the learning curve is still rising.
Queue rebalancing
Rebalance
Load levelled against measured effort rather than contact count.
Automate and Agentify are distinct findings. Scheduling a report is deterministic work with a stated rule. Diagnosing an exception is a decision. Separating the two prevents a register from over-scoping the first and missing the second.

Systems typically instrumented

SalesforceZendeskServiceNowFive9 and GenesysKnowledge basesExcel and Outlook

Capture covers browser-delivered and thick-client applications, including virtualized estates, with no change to how anyone works.

Roles Involved

Contact centre operationsCustomer serviceWorkforce managementCX and qualityOperational excellence

Instrumentation is configured per application rather than per person, so the population in scope is set during scoping and is not a deployment constraint.

How an Engagement Runs

Baseline, blueprint, transform, prove

The same four stages apply in every sector. The fourth stage repeats the baseline measurement, which makes the engagement an ongoing operating capability rather than a one-time report.

01

Baseline

What the work costs today, measured across every person and application.

02

Blueprint

Procedures, application rules and execution evidence, read as one target state.

03

Transform

Where each of the five levers applies, priced and owned.

04

Prove

The after state measured against the baseline, using the same method.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this monitoring our agents?
Capture is pseudonymous with no PII and no content capture. The data describes the work performed. This is enforced by the architecture rather than by policy, which supports works council review.
How does this sit with our existing quality programme?
Quality samples a handful of contacts per agent per month. This measures every contact continuously, so quality can focus on judgement rather than on establishing what happened.

Start with a measured baseline

Six weeks from instrumentation to a priced opportunity register, and the baseline stays in place so later quarters are measured rather than re-estimated.