What it means
AHT adds together three things: the time the agent is talking or chatting with the customer, any time the customer is put on hold, and the after-call work the agent does to complete the task, such as updating records or sending a confirmation. It is calculated per contact and then averaged across a period.
Lower numbers mean each contact uses less agent time. Finance teams care because agent time is the biggest cost in most service operations.
If AHT falls from 10 minutes to 8 minutes, the same team can handle 25% more contacts, or the same volume can be handled with fewer staff. Planning models for headcount and budgets rely on AHT, together with call volumes and service targets.
However, a lower AHT is not always better. Pressure to cut call times can lead agents to rush customers, skip checks or end calls before the problem is solved, which increases repeat contacts and damages satisfaction.
For this reason, AHT should be read alongside first contact resolution and customer satisfaction scores. AHT varies hugely by type of contact.
A simple password reset may take three minutes while a complex billing dispute might take twenty, so averages across mixed work can hide very different realities. Many centres therefore track AHT separately by issue type and by channel, such as phone, chat and email.
Sensible improvements target the causes of long contacts, such as unclear procedures, slow software, poor training or avoidable customer confusion. Better knowledge bases, self-service options and clearer billing statements can reduce both volume and handle time.
Workforce planners also use AHT to build staffing schedules. They multiply expected contact volume by AHT to find the hours of work, then add allowances for breaks, training, absence and the fact that agents are never busy every second.
Small errors in AHT therefore flow straight into the cost of the team.
In practice
Real-world examples
Example 1
An online retailer's contact centre handles 20,000 calls a month at an AHT of 6 minutes. The operations manager uses these numbers to calculate that it needs 2,000 hours of agent time a month before allowing for breaks and absences.
Example 2
A bank introduces a new customer record system that loads in two seconds instead of twenty. AHT drops by 40 seconds per call, which on 100,000 calls saves roughly 1,100 hours of agent time.
Example 3
A telecom company notices that AHT on billing queries is 14 minutes, against 6 minutes for other queries. It redesigns its monthly statement to be clearer, and billing calls become both shorter and less frequent. Billing calls are reviewed again quarterly to confirm that the new format keeps reducing contacts.
Think of it
AHT shows how long customer service interactions typically take-the time cost per customer contact.
Formula
Calculation
Average handle time = (Total talk time + Total hold time + Total after-call work time) / Number of contacts handled
Suppose a support team handled 500 calls in a day. Total talk time was 2,500 minutes, total hold time was 500 minutes and total after-call work was 1,000 minutes.
Total handle time = 2,500 + 500 + 1,000 = 4,000 minutes. AHT = 4,000 / 500 = 8 minutes per call.
If an agent costs $30 an hour, the labour cost per call = (8 / 60) x 30 = $4.00. Cutting AHT to 7 minutes would reduce the cost to (7 / 60) x 30 = $3.50 per call.Case study
Seen in the real world
Meridian Insurance is an illustrative, fictional insurer whose claims helpline had an AHT of 11 minutes. Management set a target of 8 minutes to cut costs across a team of 60 agents.
Within three months, AHT fell to 8.5 minutes, but the number of customers calling back about the same claim rose by 30% and satisfaction scores dropped. The finance analyst calculated that the extra repeat calls cost more than the time saved.
The target was replaced with a goal that combined AHT with first contact resolution, and agents were given time to finish claims properly. The illustrative result was a slightly higher AHT of 9.5 minutes, but fewer repeat calls and a lower overall cost per resolved claim. The analyst also showed that each extra repeat call cost about $4, so even a small rise in call-backs outweighed the saving from shorter calls.
Watch out
Common mistakes
- Setting an aggressive AHT target without watching quality, which encourages rushed calls and repeat contacts.
- Leaving out after-call work, which understates the true time an agent spends on each contact.
- Comparing AHT across different types of contact, when billing, technical and sales calls naturally take different lengths of time.
Questions
People also ask
What is a good average handle time?
There is no universal figure, since it depends on the industry and complexity of the work, so benchmarks should be set by contact type.
How does AHT affect staffing?
Required agent hours are roughly contact volume multiplied by AHT, with an allowance for breaks, absence and peaks in demand.
How is AHT different from average time to resolution?
AHT measures the agent's working time on a contact, while time to resolution measures the elapsed time from the issue being raised to being solved.
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