Hold music costs businesses more than they might think. According to multiple surveys, more than two-thirds of consumers are only willing to wait on hold for less than two minutes before hanging up or becoming frustrated, an expectation that most contact centers still struggle to meet.
That short window, often referred to as Average Hold Time (AHLDT), plays a bigger role than it seems. While it may appear to be a simple operational metric, AHLDT has direct implications for customer retention, agent productivity, and brand reputation. It’s also one of the easiest metrics to ignore until it starts hurting CSAT or appearing in customer reviews.
This article breaks down what AHLDT actually measures, why it matters to both your support and revenue teams, and most importantly: what you can do to lower it without compromising service quality.
We’ll also look at common causes of long hold times, how to track this metric correctly, and practical strategies to reduce it, ranging from smarter call routing to better agent training and real-time knowledge access.
Let’s start by clarifying the definition of Average Hold Time and how it fits into your contact center performance tracking.
Key Takeaways:
- AHLDT Defined: Average Hold Time tracks how long callers are placed on hold after the call is answered, not queue wait time. It’s measured from the moment an agent hits “hold” to when they return or disconnect.
- Why It Matters: AHLDT directly impacts customer satisfaction, operational flow, and brand perception. High hold times frustrate customers and often signal internal inefficiencies.
- Top Causes of Long Holds: Poor training, slow systems, call complexity, and unclear escalation paths all increase hold duration. Identifying the cause is key to resolving it.
- How to Track It Right: Use dashboards to monitor AHLDT by agent, team, and time of day. Review trends and align your goals with industry benchmarks based on support complexity.
- Smart Ways to Reduce AHLDT: Improve knowledge access, invest in targeted training, integrate tools, fine-tune call routing, and communicate clearly with customers during holds.
- Don’t Eliminate Holds Entirely: Pressuring agents to avoid holds can backfire. Purposeful, brief holds are better than rushed or inaccurate responses.
- Watch Related Metrics: Monitor AHLDT alongside AHT, FCR, and CSAT to ensure faster service doesn’t come at the expense of quality or customer trust.
- Self-Service Tools Help: IVRs, chatbots, and knowledge bases reduce simple queries, freeing agents to focus on complex cases without frequent holds.
- Customer Feedback Matters: Listen to call surveys and sentiment trends. Hold time data means more when paired with what your customers are actually experiencing.
What Is Average Hold Time (AHLDT)?
Average Hold Time (AHLDT) is a core metric used by contact centers to calculate how long, on average, callers are placed on hold during live conversations. It focuses solely on the time customers spend waiting after a call has already been answered, not the time spent in a queue before reaching an agent.
This measurement begins the moment an agent presses the “hold” button and stops once they return to the conversation or end the call. In a single call, there might be multiple hold intervals, all of which contribute to the total hold time.
AHLDT offers more than just operational visibility, it provides insight into how confident, prepared, and resourced your agents are during live interactions.
Why Hold Time Occurs
Agents typically place customers on hold for a few key reasons:
- Looking up account information or past interactions
- Consulting a supervisor for confirmation or escalation
- Updating internal systems or documenting actions taken
Each hold reflects something about your internal workflow. Frequent or extended holds may point to poor system usability, fragmented tools, or unclear internal processes. In contrast, low and stable hold times can indicate that agents have fast access to answers and decision-making support at their fingertips.
AHLDT Formula (Simplified)
The standard formula for calculating Average Hold Time is:
AHLDT = Total Hold Time During Calls ÷ Total Number of Calls Handled
For example, if your team spent 2,000 minutes on hold across 1,000 calls, your AHLDT would be 2 minutes.
Most modern call center platforms handle this calculation automatically and display it at agent, team, and queue levels. But it’s still worth understanding the formula so you can interpret trends and outliers with context.
Why AHLDT Matters in Contact Center Performance
Average Hold Time isn’t just a number sitting on a dashboard, it’s one of the most visible signals your contact center sends to customers. Whether you’re running a sales-driven outbound team or a high-volume support operation, AHLDT directly shapes how your customers perceive your service, how efficiently your team operates, and how much strain your systems and staff are under.
Let’s break down the specific ways AHLDT affects performance across customer experience, internal operations, and brand reputation.
Customer Experience Implications
Nothing tests a customer’s patience faster than being put on hold, especially without explanation. Long hold times are among the top reasons customers abandon calls altogether. In fact, 60% of customers say even a minute of hold time is too long before frustration kicks in.
Short, purposeful holds, communicated clearly, signal something entirely different: competence. They show that agents are taking action, not stalling. When handled well, even brief holds can reassure customers that their issue is being actively resolved, not ignored.
Operational and Workforce Efficiency
High AHLDT often signals underlying inefficiencies: clunky tools, fragmented workflows, or a lack of agent training. If agents routinely place callers on hold to search for information or wait on support from another team, it slows the entire operation down.
On the other hand, when hold times are low, it’s a sign that agents have the tools and knowledge they need to resolve issues in real time. This reduces pressure on queues, shortens total call times, and keeps your workforce moving forward without bottlenecks.
Brand Reputation and Customer Loyalty
Every time a customer sits on hold, they’re forming an impression, positive or negative, about your brand. Prolonged silence or unexplained delays tend to leave a lasting mark, especially for new customers or those dealing with a complex issue.
By consistently keeping hold times low, you send a clear message: your customers’ time is respected. This builds trust, strengthens loyalty, and reinforces the perception that your company is organized, attentive, and reliable, even during peak hours or difficult cases.
Factors That Influence Average Hold Time
Average Hold Time rarely exists in isolation, it reflects the deeper dynamics of how your contact center operates. From agent preparedness to backend systems and internal workflows, several factors shape how often and how long customers are placed on hold. By identifying and improving these areas, contact centers can make meaningful progress in reducing AHLDT without compromising service quality.
Agent Training and Skill Level
Agents often place customers on hold when they aren’t confident in their next step, whether that’s answering a product question, troubleshooting an issue, or navigating internal tools. This hesitation usually points to gaps in training or onboarding.
Agents with a strong grasp of both the product and the tools they use every day are less likely to pause a call. Instead, they move through interactions fluidly, making fewer hold-related interruptions and maintaining customer engagement throughout.
System Performance and Tool Accessibility
Even experienced agents can be slowed down by sluggish or fragmented systems. If they’re toggling between multiple platforms to find customer information, order history, or documentation, hold times naturally increase.
In contrast, when contact center tools are integrated into a unified interface, such as Voiso’s single-pane agent workspace, agents gain real-time access to everything they need. That cuts down the time spent searching and dramatically reduces the need to put callers on hold.
Call Complexity and Issue Types
Not every inquiry can, or should, be solved in 90 seconds. Highly technical or multi-step issues often require deeper investigation, access to backend data, or coordination across departments. These cases will almost always result in longer hold times.
One effective way to manage this is to route high-complexity calls to specialized agents. This not only speeds up resolution but also prevents unnecessary holds caused by generalist agents who lack the necessary context or permissions.
Internal Escalation Practices
When agents frequently need a second opinion or manager approval, it leads to routine interruptions and longer hold durations. In many contact centers, the escalation process itself is the bottleneck.
The solution isn’t to eliminate escalations, but to build clear, structured protocols for when and how they should happen. Decision trees, predefined approval flows, and real-time supervisor messaging can all help agents resolve calls faster without hitting the hold button every time guidance is needed.
How to Measure and Track AHLDT Effectively
Understanding your Average Hold Time is one thing, tracking it in a way that drives real improvements is another. To reduce AHLDT strategically, you need more than a single data point. You need visibility into who’s placing calls on hold, when, and why. That means using the right tools, tracking trends over time, and setting targets that reflect the actual needs of your customers.
Using Call Center Software Dashboards
Modern contact center platforms track hold time in real time and across multiple dimensions. You can typically view AHLDT broken down by:
- Agent
- Team
- Call queue
- Time of day or shift
These dashboards allow supervisors to spot outliers quickly. For example, if one team consistently shows higher hold times, it may suggest tool limitations or training gaps that require attention. Some platforms, like Voiso, go even further by integrating hold time with conversation analytics and sentiment scores, offering a more complete picture of how holds impact customer experience.
Monitoring Trends Over Time
Is your hold time creeping up after every new product launch? Are weekend shifts consistently slower to resolve issues? Tracking AHLDT over time uncovers patterns that daily dashboards can’t.
It’s not about obsessing over every spike, it’s about correlating hold time changes with real-world events: staffing fluctuations, support policy updates, seasonal demand, or new tool rollouts. When you see those connections clearly, it’s easier to address root causes rather than surface symptoms.
Benchmarking Against Industry Standards
There’s no universal “good” AHLDT, it depends on what your contact center handles. A two-minute hold might be acceptable for a technical support line but excessive for a sales team.
Rather than setting arbitrary thresholds, benchmark your AHLDT against peers in your industry and segment. Look at factors like:
- Support complexity
- Average call duration
- Customer expectations in your region or sector
This approach helps you set realistic, customer-focused goals, not just internal targets. Use benchmarks to guide improvements, not as fixed standards.
Strategies to Reduce Average Hold Time (Without Sacrificing Quality)
Cutting down hold time shouldn’t mean cutting corners. The goal isn’t to eliminate holds altogether, it’s to make them shorter, smarter, and less frequent. When customers are placed on hold for valid, clearly communicated reasons and the wait is brief, they’re far more likely to stay patient and engaged.
Here are five proven strategies to reduce AHLDT while keeping service quality high.
Improve Knowledge Accessibility
The longer agents spend searching for information, the more time callers spend waiting. A centralized, well-structured knowledge base helps eliminate that delay.
- Use a searchable interface that includes FAQs, how-to guides, and decision trees.
- Highlight the most common call types with quick-reference content that’s easy to skim.
- Organize troubleshooting steps into clear, step-by-step formats so agents don’t lose time piecing together answers.
The faster agents can find what they need, the fewer times they’ll have to place someone on hold.
Enhance Agent Training and Confidence
Many holds are simply hesitation in disguise. When agents aren’t sure how to handle a request or feel the need to double-check, they’re more likely to default to the hold button.
- Focus training sessions on real-world call scenarios, not just product features.
- Include roleplaying exercises that simulate high-pressure or unfamiliar cases.
- Regular coaching and post-call reviews help agents identify and fix the habits that lead to unnecessary holds.
Confidence leads to momentum and fewer interruptions for the customer.
Upgrade Internal Systems and Integrations
No amount of agent skill can overcome a slow or fragmented system. If your CRM takes five seconds to load a customer profile or agents have to jump between tabs to complete a task, those delays add up fast.
- Prioritize speed when selecting or configuring your CRM and support tools.
- Eliminate the need for duplicate data entry or system toggling by integrating tools into a single interface.
- Use smart shortcuts (like one-click logging or screen pops) to cut repetitive actions.
Every second shaved off system use helps bring hold time down without increasing agent stress.
Optimize Call Routing and IVR
Hold time often starts with a misrouted call. If customers land with the wrong agent, or an underqualified one, time is wasted figuring out next steps.
- Use IVR menus to gather information before the call reaches an agent.
- Apply skill-based routing to connect callers with agents best equipped to handle their request.
- Review call transfer patterns to identify common routing errors and improve flow logic.
The more direct the path to the right person, the less likely a caller will be put on hold mid-conversation.
Communicate Transparently With Callers
Customers are far more patient when they know what’s happening. Silence, on the other hand, leaves room for frustration and churn.
- Always tell the caller why they’re being placed on hold and how long it may take.
- Use hold messages that provide helpful information or estimated wait times, not generic music loops.
- Offer a call-back option for longer waits so customers can leave the queue without losing their place.
Reducing hold time isn’t only about faster systems, it’s about trust. Clear communication gives your agents a few more seconds to find answers without hurting the customer experience.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Reducing Hold Time
Reducing Average Hold Time is important, but doing it wrong can backfire. Some contact centers push for lower hold times at all costs, only to see a drop in service quality, agent confidence, or customer satisfaction. The goal isn’t to make AHLDT zero. The goal is to make each hold purposeful, brief, and clearly communicated.
Here are three common mistakes to avoid when working to reduce hold time.
Forcing Agents to Avoid Holds at Any Cost
Pushing agents to eliminate holds completely might sound good on paper, but it often leads to rushed answers, incomplete resolutions, or even misinformation. Some calls genuinely require a short pause, whether it’s to confirm policy details, retrieve account data, or check with a supervisor.
Removing that option adds pressure and leads to avoidable errors. Instead of banning holds, focus on reducing the need for them through better systems, training, and access to information.
Using Rigid Scripts That Don’t Allow Flexibility
Scripts can be helpful, but only when they support, not constrain, the agent. Over-scripted interactions leave no room for nuance. When an agent encounters something outside the expected flow, they often stall or resort to unnecessary holds just to regroup.
Give agents the freedom to adapt. Equip them with talk tracks and scenario-based guides rather than rigid word-for-word scripts. That flexibility helps them keep conversations moving without pauses.
Ignoring Sentiment Around Hold Length
Data tells part of the story, but customer feedback completes it. If you’re only watching AHLDT averages and not listening to what customers are actually saying, you’re missing critical insight.
- Are your CSAT scores dipping when hold time goes beyond a specific threshold?
- Do call transcripts or post-call surveys frequently mention “long wait” frustration?
- Are certain queues or agents getting more hold-related complaints?
Customers will tell you where the pain points are, if you’re listening. Use that feedback to refine your strategy, not just to hit a metric.
Related Call Center Metrics to Track Alongside AHLDT
Average Hold Time doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Reducing it without watching other metrics can lead to unintended consequences, like rushed resolutions or poor customer experiences. To truly improve performance, AHLDT should be viewed alongside a few key metrics that give broader insight into service quality, resolution efficiency, and customer perception.
Average Handle Time (AHT)
When hold time drops but overall call time rises, it’s often a red flag. Some teams reduce holds only to increase after-call work or stretch the talk time instead, leading to the same inefficiencies in a different form.
AHT combines talk time, hold time, and wrap-up. Monitoring it alongside AHLDT ensures you’re improving the entire interaction, not just shifting delays from one part of the call to another. The goal is balance, short, effective calls that solve the issue without compromising quality.
First Call Resolution (FCR)
Lower hold time doesn’t mean much if customers have to call back later to finish what wasn’t handled the first time. A short call that ends without a resolution is more damaging than a longer one that solves the problem completely.
Tracking FCR helps ensure that faster calls still deliver results. Ideally, you want to see AHLDT go down while FCR remains steady or improves. That’s a clear sign your agents are resolving issues more efficiently, not cutting corners.
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
Customers may not care how you define AHLDT, but they notice when service feels rushed or disconnected. CSAT tells you whether changes to hold time are actually improving the experience.
Track CSAT scores before and after AHLDT improvements. If customer sentiment drops, it may indicate that agents are under too much pressure to move quickly. But if CSAT improves or holds steady, you’re likely making the right changes in the right places.
FAQs
What is considered a good Average Hold Time across different industries?
A good Average Hold Time typically falls between 30 seconds and 1 minute, but the acceptable range depends on your industry and support complexity. For example, financial services or healthcare may see slightly longer hold times due to regulatory checks or sensitive data handling, while e-commerce or telco should aim for sub-60-second holds to match customer expectations. Always benchmark against peers and align goals with your call types and service model.
Does placing callers on hold always negatively affect customer satisfaction?
No, placing callers on hold doesn’t always harm satisfaction, if it’s done with clear communication and purpose. Customers are more accepting of short holds when agents explain why the hold is necessary and provide updates. The real damage happens when holds are long, unexplained, or silent. Setting expectations and offering callbacks can help mitigate negative impact.
How often should a contact center review AHLDT performance data?
Review AHLDT at least weekly and monitor in real time during peak hours. For long-term improvement, track trends monthly or quarterly to spot systemic issues. Use live dashboards to catch sudden spikes and schedule deeper analysis to understand changes related to staffing, product releases, or workflow updates.
What is the difference between hold time and wait time in a call queue?
Hold time happens after a call is answered; wait time happens before the agent picks up. Wait time reflects how long a caller spends in the queue, while hold time starts once the agent places the caller on hold mid-conversation. Both impact the customer experience but should be measured and managed separately.
Can offering self-service tools reduce Average Hold Time?
Yes, self-service tools like IVRs, knowledge bases, and automated workflows can significantly reduce hold time. When customers solve simple issues on their own, agents deal with fewer repetitive queries, freeing up time and reducing the need for mid-call holds to retrieve basic information. This also allows agents to focus on complex interactions that genuinely require their input.
