AHT (Average Handle Time)
What is AHT (Average Handle Time)?
AHT (Average Handle Time) is the average time an agent spends on a single customer interaction from when it connects to when it's fully wrapped up — talk time plus any hold time plus after-call wrap-up work, divided by the number of interactions handled. Contact centers track it as a core efficiency metric: lower AHT generally means agents resolve more contacts per shift, though pushing it down too aggressively can hurt first-contact resolution and customer satisfaction.
More detail
AHT is typically decomposed into three components — talk time (live conversation), hold time (caller on hold during the call), and wrap-up time (after-call work) — summed and divided by the number of calls handled; some platforms fold wrap-up into the AHT figure while others report it as its own adjacent metric.
Because AHT averages across very different interaction types, comparing it across queues or channels without controlling for complexity — a password reset versus a multi-step billing dispute — can be misleading, so most contact centers track AHT per queue or skill rather than as one company-wide number.
Frequently asked
- Is a lower AHT always better?
- Not necessarily — pushing AHT down too aggressively can push agents to end interactions before fully resolving them, which shows up as lower first-contact resolution and more repeat contacts, so most contact centers balance AHT against quality and resolution metrics rather than optimizing it in isolation.
- How is AHT different from wrap-up time?
- Wrap-up time is only the after-call administrative work once an interaction ends; AHT is the full interaction cost — talk time plus hold time plus that wrap-up time — divided by calls handled, so wrap-up is one component that feeds into the broader AHT figure.
See also
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