Average handle time calculator
Average handle time is talk plus hold plus after-call work, divided by the contacts handled. Enter the totals from a report, or one contact's times, and the calculator gives AHT in seconds and minutes, the share each component takes, and what that handle time means in hours of work for a day's volume.
Talk plus hold plus after-call work, per contact.
- Talk per contact
- 4.0 min
- Hold per contact
- 30.0 s
- After-call work per contact
- 45.0 s
- Handling work per day
- 262.5 h
Before shrinkage and Erlang slack.
Show the working
- AHT = (240000 talk + 30000 hold + 45000 wrap) ÷ 1000 contacts = 315.0 s.
- Talk is 76.2% of handle time, hold 9.5%, wrap 14.3%.
- 3000 contacts × 315.0 s ÷ 3,600 = 262.5 hours of handling a day.
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How average handle time is calculated
AHT is the sum of talk time, hold time and after-call work across the contacts handled, divided by the number handled. Reports usually give the three totals; some give averages per contact, in which case add them. Ringing time is not part of it, and neither is queue time.
The split matters as much as the total. Hold time is the component customers notice and the one process changes reduce fastest; after-call work is the one that hides in not-ready states if agents are pressed on talk time alone.
For staffing, AHT is the multiplier on volume: a ten per cent reduction in handle time takes ten per cent off the workload in every interval, which is usually worth more agents than any forecast improvement. Put the result into the Erlang C or week planner calculators to see it in agents.
Frequently asked questions
- Should after-call work be in AHT?
- Yes. It is time the agent cannot take another contact, and Erlang C assumes an agent is free the moment the previous contact's handle time ends. Leaving wrap out of AHT and treating it as shrinkage double-counts nothing but understates the requirement in busy intervals.
- What is a good AHT?
- There is no universal figure; it depends on the work. Four to six minutes is typical for consumer voice, longer for technical support, shorter for simple transactions. The useful comparison is against your own trend, by contact type.
- Why does chat AHT look so long?
- Because it is elapsed time while the agent handles other chats. A chat that needs four minutes of attention takes ten minutes of elapsed time at concurrency two or three. The live chat calculator uses the elapsed figure on purpose.
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