What if we told you that the secret to boosting your contact center’s efficiency isn’t about speeding up your agents, but about understanding exactly where time is being lost?
Every call tells a story. From routine inquiries to complex troubleshooting, AHT reveals the hidden inefficiencies that impact both customer satisfaction and your bottom line. But here’s the catch: trimming AHT isn’t about cutting corners or rushing customers; it’s about being smarter with your resources, leveraging technology, and continually refining how your agents engage with customers.
Average Handle Time (AHT) is the unsung hero of your customer service operation. It’s not just a number, but a window into the strengths and weaknesses of your entire process.
In this post, we’ll uncover the true drivers of AHT and explore innovative strategies to reduce it without compromising quality. We'll show you how optimizing AHT can transform your contact center into a well-oiled, customer-first machine. Ready to change the way you view AHT? Let’s dive in.
Average Handle Time (AHT) is the heartbeat of your contact center’s efficiency. It's more than just a number; AHT gives you a snapshot of how well your operation is running, from the first customer interaction to the final follow-up task.
Simply put, AHT measures the average time it takes to resolve a customer inquiry, and it’s made up of three key components: talk time, hold time, and after-call work.
AHT Formula:
Average Handle Time = Talk Time + Hold Time + After-Call Work / Total Calls Handled
This formula might look simple, but it captures a complex reality. Each element plays a critical role in shaping your customer experience and operational costs.
1. Talk Time: This is the time an agent spends actively communicating with the customer. It includes all conversation time, whether the agent is providing solutions, answering questions, or documenting key information. For Talk Time, the formula looks like this:
Talk Time= Total Talk Duration for All Calls / Total Number of Calls Handled
For instance, if your agents spoke for 1,500 minutes across 250 calls, the Talk Time per call would be:
Talk Time = 1500/250 = 6 minutes per call.
2. Hold Time: Hold time is the amount of time a customer spends waiting for an agent or during any transfers, whether it's listening to music, waiting for an agent to pick up, or interacting with an IVR system.
Here's the formula for Hold Time:
Hold Time= Total Hold Duration for All Calls / Total Number of Calls Handled
If customers spent a total of 2,200 minutes on hold during the day, with 250 calls, the Hold Time per call would be:
Hold Time= 2200/250 = 8.8 minutes per call.
3. After-Call Work (ACW): After-call work refers to the time an agent spends completing tasks after the customer call ends. This includes inputting notes, updating records, scheduling follow-ups, and completing any administrative tasks related to the call.
Here's the formula for After-Call Work:
After-Call Work= Total After-Call Duration for All Calls / Total Number of Calls Handled
For example, if agents spent 3,000 minutes in after-call work, with 250 calls, the ACW per call would be:
After-Call Work = 3000/250 = 12 minutes per call.
AHT serves as a vital sign for both cost efficiency and customer satisfaction. Here's how:
Cost Efficiency:
Shorter AHT means agents can handle more calls within a given period. The difference is really longer. AHT directly translates to higher operational costs and lower agent productivity.
For example, if your AHT is 5 minutes, an agent can handle 12 calls in an hour. But if your AHT increases to 8 minutes, that drops to 7.5 calls per hour.
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT):
On the flip side, reducing AHT too much can harm customer experience. Customers who feel rushed or haven’t had their issues thoroughly addressed are less likely to leave the call satisfied. A happy medium is essential for reducing unnecessary wait times and post-call tasks without sacrificing the quality of interaction.
Let’s take a real-world example to see how AHT works in practice. Imagine a contact center that handles 250 calls in a day.
Here are the metrics for the day:
So, the average handle time would be: 1,500+2,200+3,000 / 250 = 26.8 minutes per call. This metric gives you insight into how long it takes on average to resolve a customer’s inquiry, including all stages of the call.
Here’s a critical point: AHT isn’t just about cutting time. It’s about optimizing time. You might think a lower AHT is always better, but consider this:
While 6 minutes is often considered the industry benchmark for AHT, this varies widely depending on the industry and the complexity of calls. Here are some general guidelines:
| Industry | Average Handle Time (AHT) |
|---|---|
| Telecommunications | ~8.8 minutes |
| Retail | ~5.4 minutes |
| Financial Services | ~4.7 minutes |
| Healthcare | ~6.2 minutes |
| Technical Support | ~8.7 minutes |
Keep in mind, AHT is highly contextual. For example, if your business provides highly technical support, such as troubleshooting software bugs or resolving connectivity issues, then your AHT will likely be higher.
In contrast, a retail business handling basic inquiries (order status, product information) will have a lower AHT. The goal isn’t just to lower AHT but to find the sweet spot where both speed and quality are balanced.
Reducing Average Handle Time (AHT) is often seen as a way to boost efficiency in a contact center, but a sole focus on cutting time can lead to unintended consequences. While speed is important, quality cannot be compromised. Striking the right balance between AHT and service quality is crucial for long-term customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. Here's how to think about the challenge, the solution, and how to keep everything in balance.
When businesses prioritize reducing AHT above all else, there’s a risk of rushing through customer interactions. This often leads to:
To ensure that you're optimizing AHT without sacrificing the quality of customer service, AHT should be viewed alongside key metrics like CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) and FCR (First Call Resolution).
Here’s how these elements work together:
AHT measures the efficiency of call resolution. However, focusing on reducing AHT too much can cause agents to rush through interactions, sacrificing quality.
Average Handle Time = Talk Time + Hold Time + After-Call Work / Total Calls Handled
CSAT measures how satisfied customers are with the service they receive. While reducing AHT might help with efficiency, it can negatively impact CSAT if customers feel their needs weren’t fully addressed or that they were rushed.
CSAT = Total Positive Feedback / Total Negative Feedback * 100
FCR gauges how effectively agents resolve issues during the first call. A focus on minimizing AHT might lead agents to cut corners, resulting in lower FCR if problems are not fully resolved, leading to more follow-up calls.
FCR = Number of Calls Resolved in One Interaction / Total Calls Handled *100
Note: AHT and CSAT: Shorter AHT can lead to quicker resolutions, but if it’s achieved at the expense of thoroughness, it will lower CSAT. Customers might feel rushed or have to call back, resulting in dissatisfaction. AHT and FCR: When AHT is reduced too drastically, FCR can suffer because agents may not take the necessary time to fully resolve complex issues. This leads to increased follow-up calls and a cycle of inefficiency.
Reducing Average Handle Time (AHT) without compromising service quality is a fine art. It requires optimizing your call center’s processes, leveraging the right technology, and empowering agents with the skills and tools they need to resolve issues efficiently. Below are some key strategies that directly contribute to a reduction in AHT, while ensuring customers receive the best service possible.
One of the most impactful ways to reduce AHT is through consistent, targeted agent training. A well-trained agent is equipped to handle calls with greater confidence and expertise, which leads to quicker resolutions and a more efficient use of time. Training agents on product knowledge, soft skills, and time management will ensure that they can resolve customer inquiries swiftly, without sacrificing quality.
Insight: Agents who are well-versed in common queries and troubleshooting methods will spend less time searching for answers or offering incomplete solutions. As part of the training process, consider creating cheat sheets or knowledge hubs for agents to refer to, speeding up response times and improving the overall customer experience.
Encourage ongoing learning by pairing high-AHT agents with those who handle calls efficiently. This “buddy system” allows agents to share best practices, identify areas for improvement, and learn techniques that streamline call handling without compromising quality. By listening to calls from peers with lower AHTs, agents can directly observe the strategies that make their colleagues successful.
Additionally, provide early-stage monitoring for new agents to ensure they’re adopting effective time-management strategies from the start. Early feedback is critical for setting the right pace and preventing inefficient habits from forming.
Complex, fragmented systems are one of the main culprits for high AHT. If agents need to switch between multiple systems or tools to access customer information, it can significantly slow them down. Streamlining processes by integrating CRM systems and other tools into a single, intuitive dashboard makes it easier for agents to resolve issues quickly.
Insight: When agents spend less time navigating multiple systems or logging in to different tools, they can focus entirely on addressing the customer’s needs. This simplified approach reduces friction, cuts down on unnecessary hold time, and ultimately lowers AHT.
Ensure that your contact center's ecosystem is cohesive; all systems should be integrated, allowing agents to access a comprehensive customer profile in a single view. This includes access to previous interactions, past issues, and any relevant updates in real-time. The faster agents can find relevant information, the quicker they can resolve the customer’s inquiry, cutting down on call length.
AI technology can be transformative for reducing AHT, particularly when it comes to smart routing and AI-driven scripts. By utilizing AI scripts, agents receive real-time prompts and recommendations during customer calls, helping them navigate conversations efficiently. Smart routing ensures that customers are directed to the most appropriate agent based on their needs, reducing the time spent transferring calls or explaining issues multiple times.
Insight: With CallBotics.ai, around 80% of incoming calls can be fully automated by AI voice agents. These systems handle everything from basic inquiries to more complex tasks, ensuring that only the most intricate calls are routed to human agents. Additionally, intelligent routing based on customer intent and context allows agents to be prepared with the customer’s full history before answering the call, reducing Hold Time and improving First Call Resolution (FCR).
Integrate AI-powered routing into your system so customers are connected with the right agents right from the start. This reduces time wasted on misdirected calls and enables quicker resolutions. When AI drives the call flow, your agents can focus on delivering a solution rather than spending time on administrative tasks.
After-call work (ACW) can account for a significant portion of the AHT, as agents often spend valuable time logging information, entering data into CRM systems, or scheduling follow-ups. Automating these post-call tasks can dramatically reduce AHT and free up agents for the next customer interaction.
Insight: AI can automatically handle tasks such as updating customer records, sending follow-up emails, or processing requests without requiring any agent involvement. By offloading these administrative tasks to automation, agents can spend more time focusing on solving customer problems rather than handling back-office work.
Encourage your agents to complete post-call tasks during the call if possible. If your system integrates AI-driven workflows for routine tasks, agents can focus on real-time problem-solving during the call and finish administrative work once the call ends. Additionally, ensure that automated processes work seamlessly to avoid unnecessary delays or duplication of efforts.
AI voice agents are highly effective for handling repetitive, low-complexity tasks, such as checking account balances, providing order status, or answering frequently asked questions. Automating these routine inquiries helps reduce AHT significantly by allowing human agents to focus on more complex and high-value customer issues.
Insight: With CallBotics.ai, around 80% of calls are automated, handling everything from simple inquiries to more sophisticated tasks. This dramatically reduces the need for human intervention, thereby lowering AHT and improving the overall customer experience by eliminating long wait times and repetitive processes.
Deploy AI voice agents for tasks that don’t require human intervention. This allows your agents to focus on the complex, high-value interactions that require empathy, nuanced understanding, or technical expertise, all of which ultimately improve FCR and CSAT.
Real-time assistance is invaluable in helping agents resolve issues faster without compromising quality. AI can provide suggestions during live calls, offering immediate access to knowledge base articles, troubleshooting steps, and even pre-written scripts for common issues.
Insight: With real-time AI assist tools, agents can receive context-specific recommendations, whether they need to pull up a product manual, check a customer’s previous interactions, or address an urgent question. This ensures the agent is always prepared, reducing time spent searching for information and accelerating call resolution.
Provide agents with real-time AI assistance to reduce Talk Time and ensure consistency across all customer interactions. When agents can quickly find the information they need during the call, they can resolve customer issues with greater efficiency, ultimately lowering AHT and improving customer satisfaction.
Data-driven insights are key to continuously improving AHT. By analyzing call recordings, AHT reports, and customer feedback, managers can identify inefficiencies, adjust workflows, and pinpoint areas for improvement.
Insight: With CallBotics.ai, you gain access to real-time analytics, which enables you to track agent productivity, identify bottlenecks, and predict call volumes. This allows for dynamic resource allocation, ensuring your staffing levels match demand and preventing unnecessary hold times.
Use data to proactively optimize call center operations. Monitor both agent performance and customer wait times regularly. By spotting trends, managers can adjust workflows, improve team performance, and refine call handling processes to reduce delays and enhance efficiency, keeping AHT low without compromising quality.
Reducing Average Handle Time (AHT) isn’t just about cutting time; it’s about optimizing the entire call process to deliver faster, more effective service. CallBotics.ai redefines how AHT can be reduced by leveraging AI technology that enhances both agent efficiency and customer satisfaction. Instead of focusing purely on speed, CallBotics.ai empowers your contact center to resolve calls intelligently and swiftly, ensuring high-quality service without sacrificing the customer experience.
With a 48-hour deployment, CallBotics.ai integrates seamlessly into your existing workflows, requiring minimal disruption. For contact centers grappling with high call volumes, seasonal demand spikes, or the need to maintain personalization at scale, CallBotics.ai delivers a plug-and-play solution that integrates effortlessly into your existing infrastructure. Ready to see how CallBotics.ai can streamline your call center, enhance productivity, and improve the customer experience?
Urza Dey (She/They) is a content/copywriter who has been working in the industry for over 5 years now. They have strategized content for multiple brands in marketing, B2B SaaS, HealthTech, EdTech, and more. They like reading, metal music, watching horror films, and talking about magical occult practices.
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