This is the most commonly used metric in contact centers and represents the average length of time a call takes to complete a customer inquiry. The longer the call, the more cost is involved. The aim is to reduce AHT to increase efficiencies and improve customer satisfaction.
The length of AHT is a mark of a contact center's efficiency and the aim is always to reduce AHT so that the customer has the smoothest experience.
Factors that impact AHT are total talk time, total hold time and the number of calls handled.
The basic formula for calculating AHT is:
(Talk time + hold time) / calls = AHT calculated in minutes of seconds
Note that this is often confused with Agent Handling Time, which is a different metric based on the time the agent takes to handle a call.