ACW (After-Call Work)

After-call work (also called wrap or wrap-up) is everything an agent does between ending one contact and being ready for the next: logging case notes, tagging the disposition, updating the CRM, firing off a follow-up. The customer is already gone, but the agent isn't free yet — and that gap is counted inside Average Handle Time.

You measure it two ways: as an average per contact (total wrap time divided by contacts) or as a share of handle time. Averages run roughly 45-90 seconds per contact depending on industry, and wrap eats an estimated 6-12% of an agent's shift, which is why it becomes a favourite target for efficiency programs — one McKinsey estimate cited by Voiso puts a 15-second cut at 40-70 extra contacts per agent each month.

What it hides: ACW is easy to game in both directions. Pressure it toward zero and the documentation simply doesn't get written — the next agent inherits a blank record, FCR slips, and the "saving" reappears as a repeat contact. Left unwatched, wrap becomes a place to hide: agents park in after-call status to dodge the next call in queue, so idle time masquerades as work. And a single blended figure averages a 5-second acknowledgement against a multi-minute claims write-up, telling you nothing about either. Measure it by contact type, or don't measure it at all.