Average Handle Time (AHT)
Average handle time (AHT) is the mean duration of a customer support interaction from start to finish, including talk time, hold time, and any after-call work required to resolve the issue.
In Depth
Average handle time directly determines how many tickets each agent can process per hour, making it a primary driver of support costs. The industry average AHT for human agents ranges from 6 to 10 minutes per interaction across channels, with phone calls averaging 8-10 minutes, live chat 6-8 minutes, and email 4-6 minutes of active work time. Every minute of AHT translates to staffing requirements: at 8-minute AHT, one agent handles roughly 7 tickets per hour.
Reduce AHT to 2 minutes and that same investment handles 30 tickets. AI fundamentally compresses AHT because it processes information in milliseconds. An AI agent can simultaneously query a CRM, check order status, search the knowledge base, and compose a response — tasks that take a human agent 3-5 minutes of toggling between systems.
GuruSup AI agents achieve an average AHT of under 2 minutes, with simple queries like order tracking or FAQ responses resolved in under 30 seconds. This 75-80% reduction in handle time means you need far fewer agents for the same ticket volume, or you can handle dramatic volume spikes without hiring.
Related Terms
First Contact Resolution (FCR)
First contact resolution (FCR) is the percentage of customer support inquiries that are fully resolved during the initial interaction, without requiring follow-up contacts, transfers, or escalations.
Cost Per Ticket
Cost per ticket is the total expense a company incurs to resolve a single customer support interaction, calculated by dividing total support costs by the number of tickets handled in a given period.
Cost to Serve
Cost to serve is the total expense required to deliver service to a customer across all touchpoints, encompassing support interactions, account management, onboarding, documentation, and self-service infrastructure.
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