Average handle time measures how long a typical customer interaction takes from start to finish: talk time, hold time, and any after-call work. It is a core contact-center efficiency metric.
Lower AHT means more interactions handled per hour, but cutting it too far can hurt quality. The goal is resolving the issue well, not just quickly.
Frontdesk handles routine interactions end to end in seconds and captures the summary automatically, so human handle time goes only to the calls that truly need it.