What Does AHT Mean? A Guide to Average Handling Time

Running a productive contact center largely depends on optimizing performance metrics, such as first call resolution, maximum wait time, and AHT. That raises the question, what does AHT mean, and why is it important?

You need to know the answer because leading customer experience experts and publications list it as a necessary key performance indicator. Find out what AHT means and how to improve your score.

Key Takeaways:

• AHT is the average handling time — the typical amount of time a team or agent uses to handle an interaction.
• Use AHT as a metric to see how efficient your department is.
• You must consider AHT in the light of other metrics because too low of a number could harm the customer experience.
• AHT can also indicate an issue in another department.
• Improve AHT by training agents well, streamlining workflows, and using automation to your advantage.

What Does AHT Mean, and What Is the Formula for Calculating It?

The meaning of AHT is “average handling time.” In other words, it’s the average amount of time that it takes an agent or department to handle a single transaction.

The basic formula for determining AHT requires you to add:

• Total talk time
• Total hold time
• The total time it takes to wrap up the call

Now, divide that sum by the total of calls. The answer is your AHT.

You can calculate AHT for a single agent and for your entire department. It’s important to do both measurements to get a holistic look at your team’s performance.

Also, a key variable is determining over what time period to measure AHT. Daily, weekly, and hourly results are enlightening, but you should also consider factors such as how the team performs under different supervisors or during specific company promotions.

Why Is AHT Important?

AHT can be a helpful gauge in understanding customer satisfaction. Of course, callers want agents to handle issues promptly, so a high AHT could be a negative sign.

Does that mean AHT is always good when it is low? No, because a very low AHT could indicate that agents are rushing through calls.

That’s why incentivizing individual agents and departments for AHT metrics can be tricky. You have to look at AHT within the context of other important metrics, such as first contact resolution rates and customer satisfaction scores.

AHT also highlights where other departments can improve. Numbers might be high because internal subject matter experts take too long to respond to agent requests for assistance.

High AHTs might also indicate that a product or its manual is too complex. In this case, sales and marketing teams may need to improve their messaging and customer education efforts to prevent so many long support calls.

What Mistakes Should You Avoid When Calculating AHT?

The clock for timing AHT doesn’t pause when an agent puts a caller on hold or goes into a separate conference. However, your contact center analytics might separate these metrics from your talk time. That means your AHT does not reflect reality if you forget to put hold time back into the equation.

Likewise, it’s easy to forget to include the time agents spend wrapping up the call. You have to be sure to do this accurately, as it is easy to make an error.

For example, you might decide to simply track the time between when each call begins for an agent. However, you have to account for when a worker takes a break, leaves for the day, or goes to an unrelated assignment. Fortunately, well-built contact center software, such as Intermedia Contact Center, can accurately track this figure for you in an analytics dashboard.

What Should Your AHT Be?

Some studies show that the AHT for customer service contact centers could fall anywhere between 7 and 10 minutes. This wide variance shows that it’s practically impossible to set a specific general standard.

Also, the digital era has increased customer self-service through online help resources and automated voice response. As such, customers usually only reach out to human agents with complex issues. That does mean that AHT averages can creep higher over time.

The best way to figure out your optimal AHT is to see how low you can get it before customer satisfaction starts dropping. As with any experiment, you’ll want to perform it several times to determine that number.

How Can You Improve Your AHT?

A few practical strategies can reduce your AHT:

• Continually train and upskill agents. Make sure your employees are knowledgeable about your latest products, services, and promotions.
• Start with intelligent call routing to get customers to the appropriate agent on the first contact. Constant transfers can wreck your AHT.
• Make information easier to access. When agents can get to the answers more quickly, call handling times decrease.
• Streamline workflows by eliminating unnecessary steps from call scripts and processes. Integrate your customer relationship management software into your contact center for faster data entry and retrieval.

Finally, let automation help. Auto attendants with interactive voice response can provide self-service options that don’t require human intervention. AI agents can also collect essential data before the caller connects with a person.

However, stay attentive to the AHT these virtual agents get. Long times with an automated service can be more frustrating than those with a human.

Are You Ready To See What Good AHTs Can Mean for Your Contact Center?

What does AHT mean for companies that track it and adjust accordingly? Eventually, it results in happier customers and higher revenues. To use a platform that makes measuring and improving AHT easier, talk to our Intermedia team about Contact Center software.

Rob Oscanyan

Robert Oscanyan is a Senior Director of Product Marketing at Intermedia, where he focuses on helping businesses improve their customer experience using Intermedia's award-winning cloud communications solutions. Rob has over a decade of experience spanning market research, messaging, and elevating the voice of the customer. In his free time, he constantly creating new adventures with his wife, seven kids, and a small army of pets.