Average handle time (AHT)

Average handle time is the mean duration of a customer service contact, typically defined as talk or chat time + hold time + after-call work such as logging notes or updating a ticket, averaged across all interactions in a period. It is one of the oldest and most closely watched contact-center efficiency metrics because it drives staffing and cost calculations directly.

AHT is usually broken down by channel, phone, chat and email behave very differently, and by issue type, since a password reset and a billing dispute have naturally different handle times. Because of this, a rising blended AHT can simply reflect a shift in contact mix toward harder issues rather than agents working more slowly, so it is best interpreted alongside issue-type or channel segmentation, not as one company-wide number.

Contact centers watch AHT alongside first contact resolution because the two trade off against each other: pushing AHT down aggressively can encourage agents to close contacts before fully resolving them, raising repeat contacts and lowering customer satisfaction score. Some centers now use conversation intelligence tools to see which parts of a call, hold time versus actual talk time, actually drive AHT up, rather than managing to the aggregate number alone.