How to Reduce Average Handle Time (AHT) Without Sacrificing Customer Experience or Agent Wellbeing

Average Handle Time (AHT) is one of the most misunderstood metrics in contact center operations. It's easy to measure, tempting to optimize, and frequently weaponized in ways that backfire on both customers and agents.

Reducing AHT shouldn't mean rushing customers through interactions or forcing agents to skip critical resolution steps. Effective AHT optimization means designing systems that respect both your customer's time and your agent's ability to do quality work.

This guide covers proven approaches to improving AHT—not by pressuring agents, but by understanding and optimizing the underlying system.

What Is Average Handle Time? Definition and Formula

Average Handle Time (AHT) measures the total duration of a customer interaction in a contact center, from initiation through completion of all post-call tasks. It's calculated using the following formula:

AHT = (Talk Time + Hold Time + After-Call Work) ÷ Total Number of Interactions

AHT serves as a critical input for workforce planning, staffing calculations, and cost projections. However, treating AHT as a target to minimize—rather than an indicator to interpret—leads to poor outcomes.

The Three Components of Average Handle Time

Most teams treat AHT as a single number, but it's actually composed of three distinct metrics. Each tells a different story about your operation:

1. Talk Time

The duration an agent spends actively communicating with a customer. High talk time may indicate complex issues, insufficient agent training, or product/service problems generating difficult conversations.

2. Hold Time

Time customers spend waiting while the agent researches, consults systems, or transfers information. Elevated hold time typically signals problems with system access, knowledge base organization, or tool integration.

3. After-Call Work (ACW)

Post-interaction tasks including documentation, system updates, case logging, and follow-up scheduling. High ACW often indicates broken processes, excessive compliance documentation requirements, or poor system design.

Key insight: Don't chase the overall AHT average. Diagnose and fix the specific components driving inefficiency.

Average Handle Time Benchmarks by Industry

AHT benchmarks vary significantly by industry, interaction complexity, and channel. 2025 industry data shows these general targets:

• Healthcare: 3:28 average (complex regulatory requirements and patient information handling)

• Financial Services: 4:45 average (authentication, compliance, and transaction verification)

• Telecommunications: 2:36 average (often technical troubleshooting with established procedures)

• General target: 6 minutes per contact as a starting baseline

Important: A 10-minute technical support call is not comparable to a 90-second password reset chat. Always segment AHT by intent, product line, customer tier, and contact reason before drawing conclusions.

5 Proven Strategies to Reduce Average Handle Time

1. Diagnose the Bottleneck, Not the Output

AHT is a trailing indicator—an output metric that reflects upstream friction. Before optimizing, identify root causes:

• Are agents navigating 8+ applications to resolve a single inquiry?

• Are they repeating the same explanation multiple times daily due to unclear product information?

• Are they handling contacts that should have been deflected through self-service?

Improving AHT starts with identifying and eliminating the friction that creates extended handle times in the first place.

2. Coach Call Flow, Not Call Speed

Ineffective coaching: "Wrap it up faster."

Effective coaching: "Let's simplify how you transition between steps."

Train agents to recognize natural conversation pivots. Encourage structured empathy over open-ended wandering. Guide agents to use customer intent signals to advance interactions confidently.

The goal is smoother interactions, not shorter ones. Speed follows naturally from improved flow.

3. Deploy AI for Non-Human Work

Not every task within handle time requires human cognition. AI can eliminate significant friction from the agent workflow:

• Automated call summarization: Eliminate manual documentation after each call

• Form pre-population: Auto-fill fields based on transcript analysis

• Real-time next-action suggestions: Guide agents toward resolution without research delays

• Sentiment and intent detection: Surface relevant knowledge articles proactively

When you offload administrative work from agents, they can focus entirely on customer resolution—and everything moves faster.

4. Optimize System Access and Tool Integration

Hold time frequently stems from agents navigating disconnected systems. Common culprits include:

• Screen-toggling between CRM, knowledge base, and policy systems

• Manual lookups that could be automated through integrations

• Siloed customer data requiring multiple authentication steps

• Outdated or poorly organized knowledge bases

Consolidating agent desktop experiences and implementing unified search across systems can reduce hold time dramatically.

5. Implement Intelligent Routing

Routing customers to agents with insufficient knowledge, skills, or capacity extends handle time and increases transfer rates. Skill-based routing ensures:

• Complex issues reach experienced specialists immediately

• Simple inquiries don't consume premium agent capacity

• Customer tier and history inform agent assignment

Well-designed IVR and intelligent routing systems increase both agent-less resolution rates and first-contact resolution.

Measuring AHT: Context Over Channel

Segment AHT analysis by factors that actually matter:

1. Customer intent: What problem are they trying to solve?

2. Product or service line: Which offerings generate longer interactions?

3. Customer tier: Are high-value customers receiving appropriate attention?

4. Contact reason: What categories drive the most extended interactions?

Calibrate to the conversation, not the channel. True operational performance lives in context, not aggregate counts.

Balancing AHT with Other Contact Center Metrics

AHT never exists in isolation. Monitor it alongside these complementary KPIs:

• First Contact Resolution (FCR): Low AHT with low FCR often indicates rushed interactions that generate callbacks

• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): Ensure AHT reductions don't come at the cost of experience quality

• Net Promoter Score (NPS): Track long-term relationship impact, not just transactional efficiency

• Agent attrition: Aggressive AHT pressure burns out agents and increases turnover costs

The sweet spot is where cost efficiency intersects with customer satisfaction and agent sustainability.

Key Takeaways: Sustainable AHT Optimization

If you're trying to reduce Average Handle Time by simply telling agents to work faster, you're managing the symptom—not the system.

Instead:

1. Decompose AHT into talk time, hold time, and after-call work to identify specific improvement opportunities

2. Fix upstream friction that creates extended handle times

3. Deploy AI to automate non-human tasks within the interaction workflow

4. Coach agents on flow improvement, not speed pressure

5. Balance AHT against FCR, CSAT, and agent wellbeing

Only then can you deliver faster experiences that don't feel rushed—and don't erode customer trust.

Frequently Asked Questions About Average Handle Time

What is a good Average Handle Time?

There is no universal "good" AHT. Effective AHT varies by industry, interaction complexity, and business objectives. Healthcare contact centers typically target 3:28, while telecommunications averages 2:36. The goal is finding the balance where agents resolve issues effectively without unnecessary delays—typically around 6 minutes as a general baseline.

How do you calculate Average Handle Time?

AHT is calculated using the formula: (Total Talk Time + Total Hold Time + Total After-Call Work Time) ÷ Total Number of Calls Handled. For example, if agents spent 12,000 minutes on 2,500 calls including all components, the AHT would be 4.8 minutes.

Why is reducing AHT important?

Lower AHT enables agents to handle more interactions per shift, reducing operational costs and improving capacity. AHT is also a critical input for workforce management staffing calculations. However, AHT reduction should never come at the expense of resolution quality or customer satisfaction.

Can AI reduce Average Handle Time?

Yes. AI-powered tools can significantly reduce AHT by automating after-call documentation, providing real-time agent assistance, pre-populating forms based on conversation analysis, and surfacing relevant knowledge articles proactively. Organizations report AHT reductions of 20-30% through intelligent automation.

What's the difference between AHT and talk time?

Talk time is just one component of AHT. While talk time measures only the duration of active conversation, AHT includes talk time plus hold time plus after-call work—the complete duration from interaction start to completion of all related tasks.

Ready to Optimize Your Contact Center Operations?

At InflectionCX, we help contact center leaders move beyond reactive metric management toward true operational intelligence. Our AI-augmented approach addresses the system dynamics that drive AHT—not just the number on your dashboard.

Our first principle: Context is the Compass. Don't take AHT at face value—interpret it within the flow of the conversation and the broader operational system.