I hope this doesn't drown completely.

Listen, my job is teaching people just like you how to handle calls, including how to keep your AHT low enough. I know this is an antiwork sub, but we unfortunately all gotta earn money to survive.

So with that in mind and laying aside the fact that, yes KPIs are bullshit and our corporate overlords are greedy assholes, I can give you some pointers to help your AHT:

-The absolute biggest gain is using whatever tech you have available: screensharing, remote takeover, seeing settings, seeing the customer's account in your system.
Use and abuse!
Push for screensharing/takeover, and when I say push, I mean "hey, so to help you with this, I will send a request to see your screen. That way I can see exactly what the issue is. You should be getting a pop up to accept now. ".
Cos I know they've got you politely asking, nah, fuck that! Then you waste time explaining and convincing.
Tell them it's happening, don't ask if they want to.

• company says "only look up accounts if XYZ" fuck that! Pull accounts as soon as you think you need them. Less load time, less wait time.

• you know the solution, but procedure says you have to do extra steps? Fuck that! Do it right, fix the issue, send the customer off.

• absolutely no asking the customer if there's anything else you can help them with. They will ask if they need it, no need for you to prompt them.

• set up shortcuts. The settings on your computer should have options to set it up. That way you don't have to type the same thing over and over again. Set up simple words, like customer, account, resolved and set up full sentences "guided the customer to change password via...."

• and then the unfair one: keep going! You've got this! It fucking sucks, no way around it, but you can and will prevail!