What is average hold time?
Average hold time (AHT), also known as on-hold time, is a typical contact center metric that measures the average time a customer spends on hold before speaking to an agent.
For a positive customer experience, a customer must spend less time on hold.
How is average hold time calculated?
The AHT is calculated by adding up all inbound customer calls and message hold times divided by the number of inbound customer calls answered by the agent or interactive voice response (IVR) system.
How to reduce average hold time?
To reduce average hold time, try:
- Increasing customer handling agents to meet the demand
- Implementing an interactive voice response (IVR) system
- Automating the initial call process
- Investing in a contact center solution that enables agents to respond faster
- An omnichannel cloud-based contact center solution enables a reduction in average hold time
- Use call deflection to divert incoming calls to digital channels and chatbots
