Here are the questions I would ask, Ann. How much higher is her ACT? If she making sure “all their questions are handled” – does that mean that she may be handling legitimate questions that other CSRs wouldn’t touch because they’re rushing the customer off the phone? After listening, what would you say is the reason for the increased talk time?

Actually, the #1 myth is that call centers exist for the purpose of customer service.
Call centers are about maximizing shareholder value–in the short terms (who cares about long-term stability??), period. It’s about saving money. It’s about packing as many calls into the least period of time, and using up what talent can be randomly found, in drift-net fashion, to be predictable burnt out and replaced with a new crop of overworked, undertrained suckers (this, of course, also saves on payroll and insurance costs).
Obviously, the more competent employees, the quicker they will be able to resolve certain issues. Duh. But any but the most mundane knowledge domains will not fit within this brainless cookie-cutter mentality. Mathematically, one variable–call time–will reduce with experience, but issues that require extra time will continue to require just that, and cannot be predicted in such a rigidly statistical fashion.
What idiocies like AHT guarantee is that most employees will forsake quality to keep their precious numbers in the green zone. It’s at best a lazy way of judging performance, and utterly ludicrous.
I found your link–to your own site, no less–amusing, and just as free of empirical substance as the original claim. It’s nothing but a vapid advert! You’re not even asking the right questions. But then, if you did, you might realize that call centers an indefensible concept from the get-go, and we can’t have that, can we?
In the not-so-distant past, communication technologies were design to mediate callflow between the public and the employees, to try to make it functional and relatively unpleasant experience for both. In short, we were using technology to improve the human experience.
Call centers flip the standards: the machine rules, at the expense of both customers and employees.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I have worked with call centers of all shapes and sizes in companies of various industries. While I’ve certainly encountered call centers that produce the type of jaded thinking like that in the last two comments, I have also experienced call centers who really do exist to serve the customer, serve them well, and do not even pay attention to average call times or average handle times. Our research team has even quantified situations in which the service customers receive in the call center has resulted in higher overall customer satisfaction and higher revenues. In addition, they have CSRs with lengthy tenures who like their jobs.
The notion that all call centers exist for the same reason, that they are managed the same way, that they are structured the same way, or that they are managed by the same corporate motives is simply foolish.