Average Handle Time (AHT): What it is & How to Calculate It

hey everyone today we're talking about
average handle times aht for short
we'll cover what average handle time
means how to calculate your current aht
and what you can do to optimize your aht
to improve your overall resolution rates
let's get right to it
over 90 percent of customers say the
biggest indicator of high quality
customer service is a fast response to
customer questions and support requests
remember that eht can be measured across
not just voice calling but also customer
service communication channels like live
website chat email sms texting and more
factors influencing aht include
how long it takes for a customer to
connect to an agent or navigate an ivr
system
how long the customer spends on hold or
waits to hear from representative any
follow-up communication
how long it takes team members to
complete related support tasks after
they finish speaking with the customer
though the ideal aht varies by industry
the general sweet spot is an aht of six
minutes and six seconds to calculate
your aht
add up your daily talk time your daily
total hold time and your daily total
after call work time
then divide that sum by the total number
of daily customer conversations to get
your average handle time let's look at
this example and find the average handle
time for one day in a small call center
which had the following
a total daily talk time of 1500 minutes
a total daily hold time of 2200 minutes
a total after call work time of 3000
minutes
and total customer conversation per day
rate of 250. that's 1500 plus 2200 plus
3 000 which equals 6700 minutes which
divided by 250 calls amounts to 26.8
minutes average handle time
now let's talk about strategies you can
use to keep your average handle time
under that coveted six minutes step one
use analytics to clarify factors causing
extended ahts first figure out what's
really causing an increased ht by
reviewing your analytics and kpis keep
in mind that the true causes are likely
to be different from what you expect
monitor metrics like average hold time
average culturation missed calls and
first call resolution rates over a
period of at least a few weeks to
illuminate the root cause of long hail
times this is where contact center
software features like ai-powered
insights automated reports and nlp
analytics
really come into play
step 2 optimize customer self-service
options employing customer self-service
features like interactive voice response
ivr
advanced call routing strategies and ai
based business process automations is
another effective way to keep your aht
low instead of waiting on hold for a
live agent customers can enter in key
details like account information
navigate the ivr menu to ensure they
connect to the right agent or department
and state the reason for their call this
slashes ht and improves customer
satisfaction rates in the process step
three
improve agent training materials
sometimes extended aht is the fault of
outdated or inefficient employee
training create or update your
searchable internal knowledge base to
make it easy for agents to access all
the information they need to assist a
customer without having to place them on
hold or schedule a follow-up
survey your team members and find out
areas for training improvement and
listen in on support calls to figure out
where agents are getting tripped up
taking these steps will help you to
lower your aht in no time if you enjoyed
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and for more information on average hill
times and how to optimize them check out
the article in the description box below
till next time this is nate from get
voip
you