Average handle time (AHT)
Also called AHT
Average handle time (AHT) is the average time a support agent spends on one customer interaction, from start to finish, including talking or chatting, any hold time and the follow-up work afterward. Contact centers use it to plan staffing and to spot interactions that take longer than they should.
Example
If an agent spends 50 hours on 600 chats in a month, including notes and follow-up, their AHT is 5 minutes.
Why it matters for a website chatbot
When a chatbot answers routine questions, the conversations left for people are harder, so AHT can rise even as total workload falls. ChatBento's handoff emails include the full conversation, which saves your team the time of asking visitors to repeat themselves.
See it in practice: Reducing support email
Related terms
- First response time (FRT)First response time (FRT) is the time between a customer contacting support and receiving the first reply from a person or system. It is usually reported as an average or median across conversations. Automated acknowledgements are often excluded so that FRT reflects the first meaningful response to the question.
- Human handoffHuman handoff is the point where an automated chatbot passes a conversation to a person, either because the customer asks for one or because the bot can't help. A good handoff carries the conversation history and contact details along, so the customer doesn't have to repeat themselves to the person who takes over.
- CSAT (customer satisfaction score)CSAT, or customer satisfaction score, measures how satisfied customers are with a specific interaction or service, usually through a one-question survey after a conversation. On a 1-to-5 scale it is commonly reported as the percentage of responses that are 4 or 5, out of all responses received.